aurangabad the city police on late monday night arrested the kingpin of the notorious umak gang of dacoits along with his three accomplices from a hotel at api corner the leader of the gang has been identified as suresh kashinath umak 50 a resident of kamlapur in morshi taluka of amravati district umak is allegedly involved in burglaries since 1991 and has over 60 cases registered against him in maharashtra chhattisgarh gujarat madhya pradesh and karnataka the other arrested members of the gang are vijay bhaskar shinde 30 of pune srikant kisanrao umak 24 of pardi in amravati district and ajinkya pandurang sapkal 23 a resident of bhayander in thane another gang member raju rathod managed to give the police a slip the police have registered a case against all the accused under sections 400 punishment for belonging to gang of dacoits and 401 punishment for belonging to gang of thieves of the indian penal code the gang has allegedly committed a slew of robberies and bank dacoities in the past 20 days police said on august 1 umak hired a tourist cab from a bhayanderbased travel agency for visiting indore and had given rs 10000 as advance through sapkal thereafter they reached indore where other members of the gang joined him from indore they went to lucknow jhansi and different cities before reaching amravati on monday in amravati the driver of the car demanded fare from gang which had already reached rs 35000 police said that umak hatched a plan and assured the car driver of giving the money if he dropped them to pune on the way to pune on monday night the gang stopped at the api cornerbased hotel in the city to have food after some time the gang members came out of the hotel and created a scene by claiming that a bag containing rs 45 lakh was stolen from the car manoj gangawne owner of the hotel had noticed rathod breaking open the glass of the car which made him suspicious he immediately told the police about gangs missing bag claim police said in the meantime the suspect who allegedly broke open the glass of the car ran away a police team reached the spot and questioned the gang members about the incident however the police grew suspicious over the chain of events narrated by the suspects and detained them for further interrogationumak tried his luck in politics in 2002 umak contested the zilla parishad elections from rajewadi area of amravati district on shiv senas ticket but lost by a small margin thereafter he came in contact with the notorious nankuti gang from uttar pradesh and learned how to cut open bank safes using gas cutters in 2011 he formed his own gang and started targeting district cooperative banks in different parts of the state in 2010 he underwent a plastic surgery to evade arrest utilizing the money robbed from a bank he purchased a row house for rs 285 lakh at vijay nagar