Midnight marauders

The two men who had allegedly carried out a daring midnight robbery at Café Churchill, a popular eatery in Colaba on Saturday, February 13, 2010 were arrested on February 22, reported The Times of India (TOI) on February 24. The entire episode, in which the two chopper wielding marauders entered the Café late at night, threatened the cashier and made off with Rs 24,000, was recorded on the closed circuit (CC) TV camera installed at the restaurant, TOI reported on February 18, 2010. Arif Sulaiman, 29, an unemployed hardware repairman and Sunil More, alias Raja, aged 33, a housekeeping staffer at Radio Club were apprehended by the police on the basis of the CCTV images, TOI noted.

"Pretending to be a customer, one of the men came to ‘buy a pastry.’ Actually, he had come to check the number of customers and to find out where the cash was kept,” Polly Mistry, a partner of the Café informed TOI. The man then left, waiting a few buildings away until 1 a.m. when all the customers had gone and the shutters had been pulled halfway down. Only three employees were on duty at that time. The robber returned with a chopper and accosted the cashier, threatening to attack him if he raised an alarm. He was soon joined by an accomplice, who had been waiting outside, carrying a larger chopper.

While wrapping the currency notes in two bundles, the petrified cashier accidentally touched the robber’s hand. Reacting to what he presumed was resistance on the part of the cashier, the robber attacked with the chopper. "The two men pushed the cashier to the ground and snatched the bundles of cash away from the counter. They even took away his cell phone, before fishing money out of his pockets,” Mistry told TOI. The cashier, who had been paid Rs 4,000 a few days earlier, had brought his own money back to the Café to exchange for notes of smaller denominations, Mistry said.

After a police complaint was lodged, officials from the Colaba police station took printouts of the CCTV images which were sent to other police stations, according to TOI. "We would zero in on the culprit soon,” a police spokesman assured the newspaper. Speaking to Parsiana over the telephone, Mistry’s wife Dolly revealed that the crime branch was handling the investigation. A team from Cuffe Parade police station nabbed Sulaiman from Govandi while More was later picked up from Colaba. Sulaiman had been employed with a computer hardware company and earned Rs 25,000 per month, but had lost his job nine months ago. A resident of Colaba, he had also become addicted to drugs.

"After carrying out the robbery the duo went to Ajmer on a pilgrimage. We have recovered Rs 12,000 in cash from them, beside the chopper they had bought from Manish Market. There’s a possibility that the men splurged a portion of the loot in bars,” an official told TOI. Since the accused appeared well dressed, police suspect that they are not regular criminals. Nevertheless, they are probing whether the two have been involved in similar cases elsewhere.