Bhopal/Khargone, Feb 8 (SocialNews.XYZ) After nearly forty-five years on the run, a sixty-five-year-old resident of Madhya Pradesh's Khargone district has been arrested for his role in a theft so modest in value that it might have faded into obscurity for most people.
Yet the wheels of the law turned relentlessly until they caught up with him.
The story begins in 1980, in the Balsamund Kakad area near Balkhad village, under the jurisdiction of Balkawada police station, a group of seven young men, including Salim, son of Mujid, allegedly slipped into the fields one night and carried away wheat worth only one hundred rupees.
At the time, a quintal of good-quality wheat fetched around one hundred and fifteen rupees, meaning the stolen quantity was barely enough to fill a small sack -- perhaps a few kilograms at most.
For Salim, then about twenty-years-old, the act appeared impulsive, a youthful misstep born of need or mischief in an era when such petty crimes occasionally went unpunished if the culprits vanished quickly.
"Salim and his family did exactly that. They left the village soon after the committing the crime, crossing into the neighbouring Dhar district where he rebuilt his life in the Bag area," police officials said.
Over the decades, he settled into a routine of quiet normalcy, eventually opening and running a small shop.
He raised a family day after day, and presumably came to believe that the shadow of that long-ago night had dissolved into the past.
The case file and its yellowed pages, gathered dust in police records, while Salim grew from a fugitive youth into an elderly shopkeeper.
What brought the matter back to life was a combination of persistence and modern policing.
Madhya Pradesh authorities have been conducting state-wide drives to clear long-pending cases and apprehend absconders, regardless of the offence's scale.
"A special campaign running from January 1 to 31 played a key role. During this period, investigators revisited old warrants and unresolved matters. One of Salim's former accomplices provided crucial information about his whereabouts," Shweta Shukla, Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP), Mandleswar, told IANS.
Acting on the lead, police personnel from the Khaltaka outpost moved swiftly and arrested the accused on Saturday.
The police officer explained the delay.
"Although the theft involved only a small amount, the involvement of seven individuals made it stand out in 1980 as noticeable, if not gravely serious. Over the years, each new officer approached pending cases with fresh perspectives, but many such matters lingered unresolved. The recent push to dispose of old crimes and execute standing warrants against absconders brought this one into sharp focus," SDOP Shukla said.
Salim was charged under the relevant provision for theft -- originally Section 379 of the Indian Penal Code, now updated under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita -- and produced in court.
The arrest has sparked widespread interest across Madhya Pradesh and beyond, not because of the crime's severity but precisely because of its triviality paired with its extraordinary longevity.
Source: IANS
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