Mumbai duo involved in 11 burglaries arrested

Police said the accused would target houses where the occupants were away. They would ring the doorbell several times and if no one answered, they would burgle it.

Cops with recovered items on Thursday. (Express)

TWO FILM buffs alleged to have burgled at least 11 houses in the city last year after being inspired by a movie, have been arrested by the Ghatkopar police. The duo, the police said, had watched Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! — a Bollywood movie loosely based on the life of Devender Singh alias ‘Bunty superchor’, notorious for being involved in over 500 robberies — over 20 times to copy the modus operandi. Their run was, however, cut short after a special squad of the Ghatkopar police arrested them on Tuesday.

DCP (zone 7) Akhilesh Singh said: “Since there was a spate of burglaries in Ghatkopar, a squad had been formed under the supervision of Senior Inspector Vyenkat Patil to look into the crimes.” The police squad received a tip-off about Anand Sankpal (20) and Ajay Deokar (22) being involved in several burglaries. The police team laid a trap and arrested the accused on Tuesday. “During interrogation, we found that the duo was involved in at least 11 cases of burglary, out of which four had been registered at Ghatkopar police station,” said Singh. Apart from Ghatkopar, the duo had allegedly burgled houses in Matunga, BKC, Borivali, Versova and Goregaon.

Patil said the accused would target houses where the occupants were away. They would ring the doorbell several times and if no one answered, they would burgle it. If anyone answered, they would ask for some address. “Once they found there was no one in the house, they would go to the refuge area on the top floor and climb their way down to the house using pipes. They would normally gain entry from the kitchen or bathroom,” said Patil.

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An officer said: “They told us that they were copying the modus operandi from the movie Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! They had seen it over 20 times to learn how the burglary was carried out in the movie.” Once they carried out a few burglaries, they would go to Goa to splurge their plunder, the police claimed. “Both of them are movie buffs and had met at a movie theatre. They initially had a fight but later became friends. They were hugely inspired by a movie based on a robbery and decided to replicate it in real life,” said police Sub-Inspector M Khandare, who was part of the squad.

So far, the police have managed to recover some of the stolen jewellery and two high-end digital cameras worth Rs 5.85 lakh from their residence. While Sankpal resides in Kanjurmarg, Deokar lives at Sakinaka. “This is the first time the duo has been arrested. While so far their involvement in 11 cases has come to the fore, we are interrogating them further to find out if they are involved in any more cases of house break-in,” Singh said. “During summer vacations, burglary cases are on the rise and we request people to ensure CCTV cameras are in a working condition and they inform their neighbours and local police station if they are going on vacation so that we can increase patrolling in the particular area,” he added.

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Mumbai robbery