Meet the country’s 70- year- old ‘ Sherlock Holmes’
Mohammad Najja has solved hundreds of crimes and specialises in tracing footprints
Frail looking Nazeer Mohammad Najja might be 70 years old, but he is fast on his feet and has a keen eye for everything that is happening around him. The private investigator, a resident of a small town in Kasur district in Pakistan’s Punjab province, is locally known as ‘ Sherlock Holmes’ as he has helped solve hundreds of cases. Sarai Mughal town’s famous detective specialises in tracing footprints and says that he is 80 per cent accurate in determining who the culprit is.
According to local media reports, in his 20years of working as a private investigator, Najja has solved countless mysteries and recovered hundreds of stolen cattle for his community. The rural neighbourhood relies on Najja’s skills as the remote area has little access to technology and surveillance equipment. “I learnt everything on the field. Every time therewould be any reports of theft of any kind in my area, I would show up at the crime scene and try to gather as much as I could. Eventually, I taught myself to trace footprints, which became my greatest asset in staying ahead of criminals,” Najja was quoted as saying by Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune.
Got famous
After years of detective work, Najja has gotten famous across Kasur district and is often summoned to different villages to solve crimes and retrieve stolen items. “Footprints are the most important of clues. They can tell a lot more about the criminal than the size of their shoes. Observing patterns like the length of the print, its width, its pressure, its direction and the distance from one foot to another, can help ascertain the criminal’s weight and gender,” Najja was quoted as saying.
Talking about the price of his services, he said he accepts whatever the people hire him choose to pay. “Althoughmany a times, there’d be culprits who’d offer me huge bribes tom is lead a plaintiff, but as a professional I do not accept such offers.”