Finally, police nab thief who eluded them for 4 years by swimming across Ulhas river

Tired of not being able to track him down, despite several cases bearing the signature of his modus operandi, the police began the operation by gathering more information about him. ACP Nagesh Lohar said that they found that Sayyad who ‘lived like a nomad’ and did not have a house here, had a spot along the bank of the Ulhas river in Ulhasnagar. He would sit with his back facing the river that enabled him to spot the police approaching him. “Whenever he would see policemen coming, he would jump into the river and swim to the other side thereby evading arrest,” Lohar said.

The police then formulated a strategy that would include 12 policemen. Two of them – police Naiks Karne and Javed Mulla – were specially picked for their swimming prowess. As per the strategy, there would be six policemen stationed on the other side of the river. Six of them would approach Sayyad who as per his strategy would jump into the river on seeing the policemen. One policeman from either side of the bank, Karne and Mulla, would jump into the river and chase him. The finer details were chalked out and the execution was planned for January 15. “We were nervous as there had been so many unsuccessful attempts to catch this man. He was so careful. He operated individually and no one would know where he was. While he lived like a pauper here, he would go and sell all his wares in Karnataka where he had a house,” said a police officer.

On January 15, the police went ahead with the plan and based on information that Sayyad was sitting along the bank of the Ulhas river, sent the six policemen to detain him.

As expected, Sayyad saw them coming from a distance and jumped into the river to swim across to the other bank. One of the policemen, Karne, jumped into the river too. However within 15 minutes, Sayyad found something unusual on the bank towards which he was swimming — six policemen were waiting for him there. One of the six men from there, Javed Mulla, also jumped into the Ulhas river and started swimming in his direction.

With two people swimming towards him and police teams on both sides of the bank, Sayyad started swimming along the length of the river with Karne and Mulla on his trail.

“He swam for around 40 minutes after which he got tired and Karne and Mulla overpowered him and got him to the bank where he was formally placed under arrest,” Lohar said. Police presented him before the court and got his custody till February 2.

The police have so far recovered 954 grams of stolen gold ornaments from him and expect to uncover other stolen property too.
mohamed.thaver@expressindia.com