Ahmedabad: The city crime branch on Monday arrested a man who was on the run for 25 years in connection with a robbery and murder case registered at Danilimda police station in 2001. The arrest was part of a special drive launched ahead of the rath yatra to catch long-absconding accused, said police officers.The case goes back to Jan 27, 2001, when unknown persons robbed a watchman, Bakar Ali Pathan, at Duggal Textiles in the Chandola area of Danilimda. The watchman was attacked with a knife and strangled to death. A case was filed for murder, robbery, and criminal conspiracy.The key accused, Ramu Verma, now 52 years old, was absconding since then. Based on human intelligence, police found he was working at a construction site near IIT Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. A crime branch team detained him from the Kalyanpur area and brought him to the city for further investigation.Crime branch officers said that Verma is originally from Khmaila village in Kanpur Dehat, Uttar Pradesh. “He has a long criminal history. In 1998, he was caught in a cloth theft case in Vatva. He was also booked multiple times in Uttar Pradesh for crimes including robbery, theft, arms possession, kidnapping, extortion, attempted murder, and gang-related activity,” said a police official.Police said he was also booked under the Gangsters Act and was jailed in 1999 under the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act (PASA) in Jamnagar.The accused was handed over to Danilimda police for further legal action in the case.