A masked man, who broke into an office in Seven Bungalows last week and was captured on CCTV camera stealing cash and jewellery worth Rs 12 lakh, was identified after the police found a match in their records. Despite his mask, the police were able to identify him from the shape of his eyebrows and nose, as seen in the 2015 records of a previous case. On the intervening night of October 18 and 19, the masked man allegedly cut through the metal window grill of a bungalow in Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Nagar in Seven Bungalows which houses the Tarsame Mittal Talent Management Agency, one among several in that locality that manage actors. The police said that the man searched through the ground-plus-two-storey structure and located the locked safe on the first floor. “CCTV footage shows that the man tried different combinations to open the safe before cutting it open with a hacksaw,” said Assistant Police Inspector Bharat Patil of Versova police station. After emptying the safe, Patil said that the man destroyed one of the two cameras in the room. “He would have destroyed the DVR recording machine as well but he did not find it,” said Patil. The theft was noticed on October 19 by Alap Goshar, a partner of the agency. He found that the money, as well as a diamond-studded gold necklace belonging to the wife of his partner, had been stolen and lodged a complaint. The only clue the police had was the image of the masked man, wearing gloves and holding up a cellphone torchlight, captured in one of the CCTV cameras. “We could only see the upper part of his face that included his forehead, eyes and part of his nose. We looked through our old records and did not find a match. So we asked for help from D N Nagar police and found a man who had similarly shaped eyebrows and bridge of nose in their 2015 records,” said Patil. The records identified the man as Nallasopara resident Shibu Sahu (32), the police said. Sub Inspector Ganpat Dhaigude and his team of constables from the detection squad went to Sahu’s home and recovered part of the stolen goods. “We recovered Rs 8 lakh in cash from the accused and are trying to find the rest,” said Patil. The police said that Sahu, who was out on bail after being arrested by the D N Nagar police in 2015 in cases of theft, had been tipped off by watchman Ajay Bihari (30), who works at a building next to the talent management agency, about the cash stored there. “The watchman had got to know that a large quantity of cash was stored in the bungalow and told Sahu about it. We have also arrested the watchman,” said Patil. Both men were arrested on Monday and produced in a court, which remanded them in police custody until Wednesday.
