The Town South police tracked down a suspect and arrested him from Bangalore in a systematic investigation, using as clue only a piece of newspaper that the suspect had left at the scene of the crime.
Mubarak, 23, also known as Ali of Bangalore, had broken into a shop at Manorama Junction on May 29 and taken away computers, tablets, digital cameras, pen drives and hard disks worth lakhs of rupees.
The police said that Mubarak reached the city on May 27 and visited many electronic and computer shops at Marine Drive, Penta Menaka Shopping Complex, Oberon Mall, Gold Souke Grande and Lulu Mall. But he dropped all these places due to the security systems there and chose to break into shop at Manorama Junction.
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He dropped in at the shop on May 29 morning and moved around all three floors pretending to be a prospective buyer taking a look at the products. An open door on the third floor and the staircase leading to that door was what made the accused choose this place for the operation, said the police.
He returned to the shop in the night. Before that, he had food from a wayside eatery near the Housing Board complex at Manorama Junction and took a parcel from there which he wrapped in a newspaper, which fell off his baggage inside the shop. The accused disabled the night vision cameras on entering the shop, but left his finger prints on them.
After the detailed examination of the finger print sample, the police team could confirm that the suspect was not one of the regulars known to them. The Kannada paper which was used to wrap the parcel had the seal of “SS Jewellery” and the newspaper was printed in Bangalore. On checking with eateries that remained open late into the night, the presence of a Kannada-speaking youth was revealed.
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His visual was secured from the surveillance camera installed by the City Police at Manorama Junction and his identity was confirmed by the shop owner, as he remembered him visiting the shop in the morning. A team of the Town South police then went to the jewellery showroom in Bangalore and after days of questioning the staff of the jewellery and locals, they tracked down the suspect.
The suspect had also stolen Rs. 5,800 from the cash counter. The electronic goods that he had stolen were recovered from him. During the interrogation, he said that he had boarded a late night bus from Vyttila Junction to return to Bangalore. He has many theft cases pending against him in different police stations in Bangalore.
The investigation was carried out by a team under G. Venu, Circle Inspector and V. Gopakumar, sub-inspector of the Town South police.