3 min readBengaluruMar 6, 2023 06:50 PM IST
First published on: Mar 6, 2023 at 06:37 PM IST
On February 3, a 50-year-old jewellery store worker was stabbed to death in broad daylight in the coastal city of Mangaluru. Despite getting the CCTV footage, the police could not identify the killer, who also robbed the store.
However, on March 2, when the killer was about to attempt a similar robbery in Kerala’s Kasaragod, he was arrested. The police identified the accused as Shifaz, 30, a native of Kozhikode in Kerala and took him into 15-day custody.
Shifaz went to Mangalore Jewellers located on Balmatta road on February 3, stabbed the victim, Raghavendra Acharya, and fled with jewellery. Since neither Acharya nor the jewellery owner had any enemies, the police remained clueless about the accused. After the initial probe, the police sought public help by releasing the photo of the accused and formed eight teams.
A police officer said, “We shared the information and photographs of the accused with other districts and the state police. We sent teams to Tamil Nadu and Kerala to ascertain if those states reported similar cases.”
On March 2, Shifaz came to Kasaragod from Kozhikode and roamed around. The local police, on suspicion, detained him and found weapons with him.
“The Kasargod police had seen the video (CCTV), his dress and the backpack. He was carrying a matchet. It led the police to detain him.”
The Mangaluru police brought him to the city and discovered that he was a Dubai returnee who had suffered considerable losses in business. To repay the debts, he had resorted to such an act.
Mangaluru city police commissioner Kuldeep Kumar R Jain said, “He is a Diploma dropout and was pursuing his education in Mangaluru’s Karavali college. To repay the loans, he barged into a medium-level jewellery store to rob it. He did a Google search, listed and selected a few shops.”
A police officer said, “He has come near the shop and done a proper check. He knew when the shop owner would go home for lunch and when Acharya would be alone. He struck when no one was there.”
Shifaz was in Dubai from 2014 to 2019. He started a fish pond business after returning to India with loans but it failed. We are yet to ascertain whether he has made similar attempts in other places, said a police officer. Shifaz is married and has a daughter; his family was unaware of the incident.
Jain said, “Despite having the CCTV footage, nobody identified him and we did not know from where he came and where he went. It was like ‘so near, yet far’ for us. All our teams were deployed to check call detail records (CDR) and ground information, travelling to various states. We received a good number of phone calls and all were addressed. Eventually, the Kasaragod police helped us.”
Shifaz went to Mangalore Jewellers located on Balmatta road on February 3, stabbed the victim, Raghavendra Acharya, and fled with jewellery. 
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