Man on his way home assaulted, robbed at knifepoint in Sakinaka

Two men were arrested in Mumbai for allegedly confining and robbing a man at knifepoint. The accused threatened the victim and forced him to transfer money through Google Pay.

MUMBAI: Two men were arrested four hours after they allegedly confined a man and robbed him at knifepoint in Sakinaka on Monday.

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The accused have been identified as Mohammed Shakil Choudhary, 23, and Amir Sheikh, 22, both residents of Milind Nagar in Powai.

According to the police, the complainant, Mohammed Zeeshan Abdul Khalid, 22, told the police that the accused assaulted him with a knife when he refused to comply with their demands and ran away with his phone and money.

The incident occurred when Khalid, who is an internet server maintenance executive, had gone to Chandivali for an assignment that stretched late into the night. Around 3 am, he was standing at a bus stop, looking for transport to Andheri station, when two men on a scooter approached him. Despite his refusal, they insisted on giving him a lift and forced him to sit between them on the two-wheeler.

“Khalid wanted to go to Andheri station to take the first train back home to Malad. The two accused asked him where he was headed and insisted that they would drop him. Not wanting to ride triple seat with two strangers, he refused, but the pillion rider got down, threatened him with a knife, and made him sit on the scooter with them,” said a police officer.

The accused stopped the vehicle around the Sakinaka signal. They took Khalid into a dark alley and told him to give them everything he had. “They also threatened him by saying they had committed three murders before, and he would be their fourth prey. They put the knife to his neck and forced him to transfer some money through Google Pay. The two accused then demanded to check his account balance on Google Pay, which he refused,” said the officer.

Angered by the refusal, the accused assaulted the complainant with the knife, snatched his mobile phone, and forcefully transferred ₹2.000 from his account to theirs.

At this point, Khalid somehow escaped the two assaulters and went to the Powai police. Even before the complaint could be registered, a police team started looking for the accused based on the description and scanning the CCTV footage. “Local intelligence also helped us identify and track the two accused to their homes in Milind Nagar from where they were arrested in the morning,” said the officer from Powai police station.

They are booked under sections 364 A (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 386 (extortion by putting any person in fear of death or of grievous hurt), and 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) of the Indian Penal Code.

A local court has remanded them in police custody until December 1.