After 100 burglaries, gang nabbed red-handed
The accused including five Bangladeshi nationals had allegedly broken into and burgled nearly 100 houses in Maharashtra and other states over the past few years. They would burgle 5-6 houses in one go and cross over to Bangladesh with the booty after destroying their mobile handsets and SIM cards in order to escape from the clutches of law, the police learned during their interrogation
MUMBAI: The property cell of Mumbai crime branch on Monday busted a notorious gang of burglers and arrested seven of its members from Jalna while they were in the midst of a heist. The accused including five Bangladeshi nationals had allegedly broken into and burgled nearly 100 houses in Maharashtra and other states over the past few years. They would burgle 5-6 houses in one go and cross over to Bangladesh with the booty after destroying their mobile handsets and SIM cards in order to escape from the clutches of law, the police learned during their interrogation.
According to the police, the main accused, Shakir alias Guddu Haidar Shaikh, 45, a Bangladeshi national, had come to Mumbai around 15 years ago and taken up residence near Mumbra in Thane district. He married an Indian woman a few years later and had a child even as he learned to speak fluent Marathi, which helped him identify potential targets for robbery.
Shaikh would first recruit people to conduct a recce of targets and he would call his accomplices once 5-6 houses were identified, said Datta Nalawade, deputy commissioner of police, crime branch. He and his accomplices were named as accused in at least 18 cases of burglary in Mumbai; 11 in Thane, Bhusawal and Jalna; 13 in Nizamabad; seven in Hyderabad; four in Ahmedabad and seven in West Bengal, Nalawade added.
In 2019, Shaikh was arrested by the Bhoiwada police and was convicted in four house break-in cases. But he fled to Bangladesh soon after he was released on bail, following which a non-bailable warrant was issued against him.
“We had been searching for him constantly since 2019. Police teams visited West Bengal twice but did not get any clue,” said Nalawade. “But recently, we received a tip-off about them going on a heist. We also got the contact number of one of the accused, using which we traced their location to the Partur area of Jalna district.”
On Monday, a police team visited the location and nabbed Shaikh and six of his accomplices including Bangladeshi nationals Kurban Shahin Alammandal (26), Jakir Fakir Barik Fakir (33), Manik Muslim Shaikh (30) and Shumon Jabidali Shaikh (30). Salman Shuman Shaikh, 25, a native of Bardhhaman district in West Bengal, and Arbaz Samir Mansuri, 25, a native of Jalna in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region, were the other arrested accused.
All seven members of the gang were arrested in connection with a burglary in Tilak Nagar in 2022. They were produced before a metropolitan magistrate court and remanded to police custody till February 18, said a police officer.
During interrogation, the police learnt that Shaikh and his accomplices had broken into in two houses in Partur, Jalna and stolen ornaments and cash worth ₹25 lakh. “We have recovered a four-wheeler, some weapons like a chopper, a sickle and equipment that the gang used to break into houses,” said police inspector Shashikant Pawar of the property cell, adding that Shaikh was an expert at breaking doors using a sickle. The accused would often take flights to travel from Mumbai to Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and other metro cities to commit robberies, he added.
The police further learned that Shaikh used to keep 70% of the stolen booty for himself and distributed the remaining 30% among his accomplices. He also paid them a travel allowance, as well as bills for hotel accommodation, said Pawar.