E-Paper
Jailed for theft in Ghaziabad, a budding politician from Sitamarhi
While details of his life in Mumbai are sketchy, officials said that Irfan came to Delhi in 2011 and tried to run a paan stall but was not successful
On October 26, there was much celebration in Gulshan Praveen’s two-storey house in the village of Jogia in Sitamarhi. In a hard fought district board election, Praveen polled 2,967 of a total of six thousand votes, beating her nearest rival Mohammad Jamrullah Khan. 1,200 kilometres away, in a jail cell in Dasna, Ghaziabad, there was likely a sense of cheer as well. The jail compound is where Praveen spent over a month just before the election, charged with being an accomplice to her husband, 32-year-old Mohammad Irfan, accused of theft and robbery in 40 cases across multiple states. Back in Jogia though, Irfan is a hero, a man who should have been the person fighting the elections, the Samaritan who spent money building a dilapidated road, held medical camps and gave money to the poor for surgeries. And it is his goodwill that has ensured that Praveen is now in a position of power.
The rise
In Jogia, 26 kilometres north of the district headquarters, Praveen lives with her mother-in-law Nasima, and her two daughters, aged 7 and 10, in a home with a large iron gate and a cement arch, both its floors sporting a coat of fresh white paint. The house is on the banks of a river, two kilometres away from the main road. It was not always like this.
Both Nasima, and her husband, who died in the year 2000, were daily-wage labourers. They grew up in a hut, and with four children and very little money, Irfan left home at the age of 10 and moved to Mumbai. “He worked in Mumbai at a trolley bag company. My elder son Mohammad Salman works as a labourer and the middle one, Gufran, also works in Mumbai in the same trolley bag company,” 68-year-old Nasima said.
While details of his life in Mumbai are sketchy, senior Ghaziabad police officials said that Irfan came to Delhi in 2011 and tried to run a paan stall but was not successful. There were other enterprises, including a grocery shop and a ready-made garment shop in Bawana, but both those sank as well. “He then came across a thief , who trained him, and he began his life in crime,” a Ghaziabad police official said on condition of anonymity.
Back home, Irfan’s life is local legend, and people believe he began stealing after his family was unable to give enough dowry for his sister’s wedding. His family declined to comment on this. Within years though, his riches began to grow, and in the middle of the decade came the home, and a fleet of vehicles. Irfan is illiterate, and can only sign his name, but he began using the pseudonym Aryan Khanna, with a profile named as such on Facebook, the owner of Khanna Industries. The company does not exist, police officials said.
The crimes and the arrest
A senior police officer said that the first time Irfan was arrested was by Delhi police in July 2017 from a hotel in Sitamarhi, accused of a burglary of ₹65 lakh from the home of a judicial officer in the Capital’s posh New Friends Colony. Within a year, Irfan was out on bail, and the spate of crimes refused to stop. In the next five years, the robberies that Irfan committed ranged from a burglary in a businessman’s home near the residence of the Goa governor, to a theft in the posh Gomti Nagar area in Lucknow in July. “Irfan has admitted that he has earned over ₹20 crore from burglaries in 40 homes across 12 states,” another police official said, asking not to be named. Initially, investigators said, Irfan worked completely alone, breaking in through a window, or a flimsy door. On his person, he would carry only a wire cutter, a modified screw driver, a sedative to tackle pet dogs, and would strike between 1am and 3am. Somewhere in the past decade, however, he began acquiring luxury second-hand vehicles, which would aid him in avoiding suspicion during reconnaissance, and commit crimes across states.
“He told us during interrogation that one of his luxury cars was seized by police in Punjab’s Jalandhar. He said that he drove to Kerala in a BMW and also used an Audi during another theft in Hyderabad. He purchased the Audi for ₹17.5 lakh,” said Nipun Agarwal, SP City (Ghaziabad). Police have recovered a Jaguar and a brand new Mahindra Scorpio.
His robberies across states needed at least one more accomplice who would help in driving long distances, and Irfan began using the help of Mohammad Imran, who he met while in prison in Delhi. “He also had at least four girlfriends in different parts of the country who helped in sheltering him immediately after he committed a crime. He would shower them with gifts, and they would help him lie low,” the senior police official cited above added.
On September 4, ₹1.5 crore in gold and silver ornaments were stolen from the residence of businessman Kapil Garg, in the upscale “D Block” area of Ghaziabad’s Kavinagar. The home was a stone’s throw away from the residence of Atul Garg, UP state minister for medical and health, family welfare and mother and child welfare. Spurred into action, Ghaziabad police tracked a new Mahindra Scorpio that was seen near the scene of the crime in CCTV footage from the area. It was a vehicle Irfan purchased four days before the robbery.
By September 7, Ghaziabad police raided Jogia and arrested three people: Irfan’s his wife Praveen, their driver Mohammad Soyab and another accomplice named Bikram Sao. “His wife Gulshan Praveen was brought to Ghaziabad after the cops found her in possession of the stolen jewellery items. There was a lot of resistance from local politicians as her arrest would jeopardise her election prospects. But we brought her on transit remand,” Agarwal said. By the end of September, Praveen was out on bail.
Station house officer of the Kavinagar police station Abdul Rehman Siddiqui said that in all, 11 people, including one of Irfan’s girlfriends, were arrested before the police could get hold of the man himself. It was finally on October 26, the same day his wife won the election, that police traced and arrested Irfan outside the premises of the Ghaziabad lower court.
Ghaziabad police said while most cases in which they have traced Irfan’s involvement revolve around theft and robbery — a case in Agra in 2015 is under provisions of the Gangster Act, and another from this year in Jalandhar, registered under the Arms Act. Sitamarhi SP Har Kishore Rai said there is no case registered against Irfan in Sitamarhi or the adjoining districts of Bihar.
The Samaritan politician
Gulshan Praveen told HT that immediately after her release from prison in the last week of September, she rushed to Sitamarhi and filed her nomination papers on October 6. Not that the stint affected her prospects. In the village, it is clear that Praveen being the candidate is the next best thing to Irfan, the prodigal son, who would have fought the election if he had not been in jail.
Local social activist Jivesh Mishra said Irfan had done a great deal for the village over the past year, preparing for the elections. “He spent ₹1.05 crore on the construction of roads and drainage. He also spent ₹20 lakh for the cancer surgery of a neighbour who was undergoing treatment in a Delhi hospital,” he said.
But it wasn’t just this one year, and with an eye on the election. For 55-year-old Rasmati, Irfan was the benefactor who paid ₹10,000 for an operation in 2019; 62-year-old Jogender Ram, a daily-wage earner, told HT that Irfan paid ₹4,000 during the wedding of his daughter in 2018, and ₹5,000 for a liver operation. Mohammad Modassar, former sarpanch of Godassar village, said, “He always helped the needy, held medical camps, and helped financially with marriages of the poor.”
In the time he has been in the custody of Ghaziabad police, officials said Irfan has professed a love for cars, and shown an uncanny ability to tell the make, cut, and estimated value of precious jewellery. But what he has talked about incessantly, is his desire to enter politics, even fighting the next assembly elections.
Agarwal said, “He also told us that he knows some senior politicians in Bihar and was trying his luck in getting a ticket. He also showed us some videos in which he was wearing a kurta pyjama and is dressed like a politician. He says if he is released from jail, he wants to study, and try his luck in the assembly election.”
