Two held for temple statue theft in Gujarat’s Navsari, admit to involvement in 5 more undetected crimes

The two men identified as Mohammadaminur aka Bhayankar Mannakhan Pathan (30), and Yasin Kalam Shaikh (36), residents of Chandola area of Ahmedabad, originally from West Bengal, were arrested along with the statue of the deity, religious items and cash, worth Rs 7.01 lakh, said the DCB.

A third accused in the temple theft case was arrested by West Bengal Police on a tip off from the DCB, said officials.

As the DCB realised that the third accused, Ehsamuddin aka Kamaal Jamshedali Shaikh, was in a train to West Bengal, they informed the Railway Protection Force (RPF) at Kharagpur, who apprehended him from the train and detained him.

A statement from the Crime Branch said that while they knew about two crimes in which they are accused, including the one in Navsari and another in Adalaj police station of Gandhinagar, the two accused allegedly confessed to five other crimes.

These comprise a theft of silver utensils from a home in Vapi city of Valsad, an attempt at theft from another home in Vapi, stealing a wallet full of cash in Nandasan of Mehsana, theft of bronze and aluminium utensils from a party plot on the Bareja-Aslali highway in Ahmedabad and copper wires from a scrapyard in Bareja, Ahmedabad.

Further, the statement underlined that the two accused had allegedly also revealed that they had conducted reconnaissance in planning to conduct thefts at four other temples including Nandasan Jain Derasar in Mehsana, Vaishnodevi Temple in Ahmedabad, Bahucharmata Temple in Sola area of Ahmedabad, and Kashtabhanjandev Temple in Vapi, Valsad.

Officials also said that the two men are history sheeters with a long list of crimes including 10 previous cases against Mohammadaminur aka Bhayankar Mannakhan Pathan and six previous cases against Yasin Kalam Shaikh.