As Bangalore city police and central intelligence agencies were working on the assumption that ‘Mehdi’ may not be based in the city as he claimed, or he may have fled after his identity was unmasked by Channel 4, agencies were stumped to track him down to a nondescript flat in Jalahalli here.
While the breakthrough came late in the night, it was not before police officials, led by Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Hemanth Nimbalkar, went through anxious moments.
The special team that reached Flat A 29 in Sujatha Apartments at Ayappa Nagar, Jalahalli, where Mehdi’s mobile documents led them, realised that they had knocked on the wrong door.
The team first checked the letter boxes on the ground floor and saw that letter box for Flat A 29 was in the name of Mehdi Masroor Biswas.
The special team barged into the house, scaring its inmates. The officers were stumped when they found that the flat had two other inmates; Mehdi was not living there.
Residents’ help“There was a lot of confusion, we thought we had lost him,” said an official. What came to their rescue in the last minute was the photograph of Mehdi. When they showed his photograph to other residents of the building, there was a breakthrough. They were guided to Flat A14. When the police knocked on the door, Mehdi answered it. The first thing he said was: “Channel 4 interview maine kiya, ” sources said. Mehdi lived in Flat A 29 until six months ago, and had used the rental agreement to procure a SIM card. He had recently moved to the larger Flat A 14. But the letter box for A 29 still depicted his name.
