Duo climbs posh Santacruz building for theft, arrested

Two men were arrested in Mumbai for climbing into a second-floor flat through pipes in a posh building. They posed as servicemen to recce buildings before stealing valuables in broad daylight. The men have been sent to judicial custody after being identified from CCTV footage, while their entire stolen stash was recovered.

Mumbai: Two men were arrested last week after they were seen climbing up to a second-floor flat through pipes of a posh building in Santacruz. Their modus operandi was to recce the buildings by posing as servicemen. The two men have been sent to judicial custody.

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The lookout for the two men who were later identified as Rahul Mudani, 20, and Sunny Pawar, 23, started when the police received a complaint from Linking Road resident Sunil Bajaj. He has alleged that ₹1.5 lakh worth of valuables, including jewellery and silver vessels, had gone missing from his flat in the Usha Villa building. While looking at the CCTV footage of the area, the police saw the two men climbing onto the second floor of the building from the pipe duct.

“The complainant owns two flats in the Usha Villa building, one of which is occupied by the family while the other has several of their things stored. The thieves apparently would look up at the posh apartments to check which ones didn’t have their lights on and target them,” said an officer from Santacruz police. He also said that before the actual theft, they would pose as sewer cleaners and scrap dealers to check out the interiors and exteriors of the buildings they targeted as well.

The thieves would carry out thefts in broad daylight even as people who looked at them thought they were going about some maintenance or repair work of the building’s plumbing. In the case that the police were investigating this time, they conducted the theft at around 9am according to the footage that the police collected.

“Though we had the footage, the two of them were not identifiable in the video. We had to involve some of our local informers to assess the body language and help us identify the two men seen in it,” said the officer. People who got the descriptions from all across Veera Desai Road were rounded off to reach the two accused,” he added.

After nabbing the two men, the police could also recover the entire stolen stash. The two men were sent to judicial custody by the court.