KOCHI: On August 22, a robbery in Thiruvananthapuram rattled the Kerala Police, as one of the two men involved in the crime pulled out a gun twice — to threaten the public and to parry a lone cop — before fleeing the state. The use of firearms by criminals has, so far, been a rarity in Kerala. It is certainly not as common as one sees in Malayalam films.
The city police constituted a special probe team to hunt down the suspects. A month-long tracing-and-tracking revealed that one of them was in Seelampur in Delhi.Last week, a ten-member team headed to the national capital and, in filmy style, nabbed Muhammad Shameem Ansari.
Tracking him down was not an easy task, says Sub-inspector Jiju Kumar P D of the Museum police unit. Muhammad and his accomplice, who is yet to be identified, had recced Thiruvananthapuram under the garb of cloth merchants, he adds.
They had taken a bike on rent from Kovalam, and the only clue they left behind was an Aadhaar card, which turned out to be fake.They had given a mobile number to the owner of a house near Kaithamukku, where they stayed on rent. But that also turned out to be of little use. Muhammad would discard SIM cards after every ‘operation’.
“He did not do a single online transaction using that number,” notes Jiju.“He thought he did not leave any leads behind and was confident of not getting caught.” Having served a five-year prison term in a robbery case, Muhammad had an idea of how investigators think and act, says Fort Sub-inspector Abhijith, who led the team that nabbed Muhammad. “When we reached his hideout, he was stunned,” he adds.
Though the finer details of the probe have been kept under wraps, it has been learnt that the Museum police team diligently went through the phone call records of the mobile phone tower near Kaithamukku.
Officers had a hunch the culprits would have made at least one call from one of their original numbers. They hit bull’s-eye. They zeroed in on one of the suspect’s phone numbers. The tower location was traced to Delhi.
An informant of the Delhi police confirmed the identity of the suspect, who resided in a chawl-like area in the national capital.“Getting to him was the next big challenge,” says Abhijith. “The place is notorious for seasoned criminals and picking him up from there was a risky job.”
Abhijith adds that the 10-member team pulled off the mission with the help of the Delhi Police. Another officer, who was part of the probe team, says Muhammad was a tough nut to crack and has been withstanding grilling.
“He is yet to reveal the identity of his partner, who had brandished the gun. He maintains that he does not know the guy’s name,” says the officer. “Muhammad is taking time to conjure up answers. He said he had first met his partner in Tihar jail years ago, and later they met outside metro stations at preset times. Sometimes, he says the gun-toting guy is from Bareilly, then he says Meerut. He keeps changing details.”