Man held while stealing gold jewellery third time from a Zaveri Bazaar shop

A 19-year-old man who managed to steal gold jewellery from a Zaveri Bazaar shop twice ran out of luck on Saturday when the staff caught him after studying the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage. He was handed over to the LT Marg police.

The accused has been identified as Bapi Babarali Mulla (19),  a resident of Juhu Gully in Andheri.

According to the police, the shop staff saw a customer had an argument with employees about some jewellery not returned to him. When they checked the CCTV footage, they saw the man stealing gold twice.

The police said complainant Mohammad Ali Amir Ali Shaikh (40) runs a gold cutting unit at Zaveri Bazaar and 10 people work at his unit. On March 12, when Shaikh was at his unit, a businessman known as Gokul had come there and entered into an argument with unit manager Sayyed.

Gokul alleged that some of the gold given by him at the unit for cutting was not returned.

“Sayyed’s counter argument was that the gold was returned to Gokul. The staff then went through the CCTV footages of the shop and found an unknown man standing with Gokul on the said counter. The footage clearly showed that the unknown man had pocketed some gold from the counter. The same person was also seen taking gold belonging to businessman Dilip Maiti on March 26 from the same counter,” said an officer from the LT Marg police station.

 He added that when the shop was about to close at around 5.30pm on Saturday the staff saw the same person at the counter and on the basis of the CCTV footage they recollected his face, apprehended him and took him to the police station.

 “It has been learnt that Mulla had till date stolen 162 grams of gold worth Rs3.37 lakh from the shop on two occasions. He has been booked under Section 380 of the Indian Penal Code. He has been sent to police custody till September 26,” said the police officer, adding that they are yet to recover the stolen booty.