Mumbai, September 11: ARMED robbers killed a 70-year-old man and seriously injured his 65-year-old wife before fleeing with cash and valuables worth Rs 42,000 from a house in Thane’s Ambarnath area on Monday midnight. The police swung into action after the incident was reported early on Tuesday morning and arrested three of the four accused within hours of the robbery. The alleged mastermind is still absconding.

According to the police, four armed robbers struck at the house of the elderly couple —Vasant (70) and Chandraprabha (65) Matke — at Anandnagar MIDC in Ambernath (East). The Matke couple were the only occupants of the house and ran a plant nursery on the premises, the police said, adding that the couple’s married son, Vishwas, lived in the nearby Tansai area. The accused, according to the police, cut the barbed wire of the compound and the locked the servant quarters before breaking into the house — Chandraprabha was watching television then. Once in, the police said, the accused attacked the couple with sticks. When the couple tried to put up a fight, they attacked Chandraprabha with a chopper and she handed over her ornaments and some cash to the accused, the police said, adding that they fled with cash and valuables worth Rs 42,000. The police said the couple was rushed to Gautam Jatale hospital but Vasant Matke was declared dead. Chandraprabha was under treatment at Central Hospital at Ulhasnagar for her injuries, the police said.

A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at 3.50 am on Tuesday at the Ambarnath police station. According to the police, one of the accused, Ganesh Waghe of Barkupada in Ambarnath, was arrested around 6 am. He, the police said, led them to two others, and by 9 am, the Ulhasnagar Crime Branch team led by Inspector Jairam had arrested Manya Waghe and Gaurya Waghe, residents of Badlapur, from their hideouts at Shahad in Ulhasnagar.

According to the police, part of the booty was recovered from the accused. The police said that the identity of the fourth accused, the alleged mastermind, was being withheld as he was still

absconding.