Bihar native accused of burglary at director Joshiy’s house brought to Kochi
Muhammed Irfan alias Bihar Robinhood, 35, arrested from Karnataka on the charge of burglary at ¡lm director Joshiy’s house at Panampilly Nagar was brought here in the early hours of Monday.
Addressing a press conference here, District Police Chief (Kochi City) S. Syamsundar dubbed the swift arrest of the accused within 15 hours after the crime a proud moment for the city police. Gold and diamond jewellery and other valuables worth around ₹1.20 crore were stolen from the director’s home.
He said Raman Gupta, IPS, of the Karnataka Police helped coordinate the eorts at Udupi, Karwar and Mangaluru districts, leading to interception of the accused in Udupi. The police had to chase him down as he did not stop when the police waved him down.
19 cases registered
Mr. Syamsundar said that the accused had around 19 cases registered against him, including for theft at the house of a prominent jewellery chain owner in Thiruvananthapuram, across six States. The accused had searched for posh localities in Kochi on Internet before hitting the director’s house. He had attempted theft at three other houses before breaking open the kitchen window of the director’s house using a screwdriver. That the locker in which the gold was kept was unlocked helped him.
CCTV analysis
The city police had come across a white sedan in suspicious circumstances in extensive CCTV analysis. The car was later found to have crossed Kasaragod district by Saturday noon and was eventually intercepted with the help of Karnataka police.
The private car had sported a board of the district panchayat oce of Sitamarhi in Bihar. It emerged that the wife of the accused was the district panchayat president there.
The police suspect that he had bought the car from someone in Mumbai and was yet to transfer it to his name.
Based on initial investigation, the police suspect that the house was chosen randomly. However, investigation was under way to ascertain whether he had local help. He had come to Kochi from Bihar and was headed towards Mumbai. The accused was released from jail just a month ago.
The accused had searched for posh localities in Kochi on Internet before picking the director’s house to burgle
Valuables recovered
Mr. Syamsundar said the entire lot of stolen valuables has been recovered from his car. It is suspected that Kochi was chosen for the hit due to its perceived large consumption of gold. He said that investigation was under way to verify whether he had bene¡ted from any insider information.
Mr. Syamsundar, however, sought to play down the accused’s moniker Bihar Robinhood, which he supposedly earned upon sharing the loot with the poor. To the police, he is just another criminal, the police ocer added..
Deputy Commissioner K.S. Sudarshan, Assistant Commissioner P. Rajkumar, and inspectors Premananda Krishnan and Richard Varghese, were part of the team.