KOCHI: If it was behind a buffalo that the whole villagers in the movie Jallikattu ran, an entire hamlet near Shoranur was on a similar mission on Tuesday. This time they were not after a buffalo but a dreaded criminal who jumped off a moving train to escape from police custody.
It was a sleepless night for the residents of Nambram, a quiet village, to nail down Manik Sardar, aka Master (35), who is wanted in a series of robbery cases.
They formed small groups and joined the police officers, checking every nook and cranny for the accused.
The police team was sure Manik had not left the area as a girl residing nearby had spotted him near a rubber plantation in the night.
At 8am on Wednesday, local resident Sojumon spotted him while attempting to cross the railway bridge across the Bharathapuzha. He immediately informed the police who launched a manhunt in the area. At 11 am, a woman, wife of a railway employee, spotted Manik passing through the Railway Colony. Based on her inputs, police rushed to the spot, chased and nabbed him from near the Shoranur railway station.
The villagers joined the search after they came to know about Manik’s brazen robberies from the police officers. Manik, hailing from Dhaka in Bangladesh, has more than a dozen robbery cases pending against him at various police stations across the country apart from a murder case in New Delhi.
He operated with a gang of around 10 people. The gang used to arrive at a railway station and target isolated houses located close to the railway track. Their style was to barge into houses by breaking doors, attack inmates, tie them up and loot the belongings.
Manik slipped off the clutches of the police when they unlocked his handcuff at around 2.30pm on Tuesday for lunch. They were taking him to the Ernakulam District Jail from Kannur Central Jail. "Manik was part of the gang which came to India using fake ID cards and used to stay here. They worked as ragpickers and did odd jobs during the daytime to identify their targets. Break-ins were done under the cover of darkness. After committing the crime, they fled to Bangladesh," said a police officer.
On December 16, 2017, the gang attacked the residence of Nannappilli Anandakumar near Hill Palace at Tripunithura and decamped with 50 sovereigns of gold, three mobile phones and Rs 20,000 in cash. It was Manik who brandished lethal weapons towards the family members and tied them up in the house for executing the robbery.
Of the 11-member gang, the police have nabbed nine members including Manik. He was booked for firing at a policeman in New Delhi. It was the Delhi police who handed him over to Kochi Police. The gang had first struck at the double-storey house of EK Ismail at Pullepady in Kochi.
Earlier, they operated a theft at the residence of a journalist in Kannur in a similar manner. "It was with the support of the local residents that the police could manage to nab the accused, who was involved in several sensational cases," said Cheruthuruthi SI V P Sibeesh.
He was shifted to the Ernakulam District Jail from Kannur Central Jail as part of the trial proceedings of the cases registered by Ernakulam North Police and Hill Palace police stations.
