Mumbai (The Hindu): A pole number, commuters and professional rivalry help police solve a 3-year-old crime

Two days after a video of two suspected thieves being stripped and assaulted at a railway station went viral, the Government Railway Police on Friday traced and arrested the two men seen perpetrating the assault in the video shot in 2013. A 42-member team of the Dadar GRP worked round the clock for five days, going through CCTV footage, talking to commuters and gaining clues from professional rivalry among fishermen to trace the accused.

The video, which emerged earlier this week, reached senior GRP officers, who instructed all police stations to look into the matter. GRP officials said the case was challenging for several reasons. “It was a blind case as all three crucial pillars of an FIR — time, place and victim’s identity — were missing,” said Railway Commissioner of Police Madhukar Pandey.

The pole number

The first breakthrough came when GRP officials examining the clip noticed a number painted on a pole in the background. Every pole on the railway line is assigned a number for maintenance purposes, and this one had ‘7/16’ on it. It was traced to Parel railway station on the Main Line.

“There were two problems with that. There was nothing on CCTV and there are also some other poles with similar markings,” Mr Pandey said. A GRP officer added that CCTV cameras in stations only retain footage for 15 days, and the available footage had not captured such an incident.

Daily commuters

Police registered an FIR against unidentified persons with Dadar GRP on Wednesday and then examined CCTV footage of the last 15 days, especially early morning footage based on light conditions in the video.

“We identified several commuters who use trains at Parel at dawn. On Thursday, we stationed ourselves at Parel station from 4 am to 8 am and began identifying on our list. We made enquiries with them and finally one, on the condition of anonymity, said the duo leading the assault were fishermen from the Parel fish market, and the incident had happened in 2013,” an officer said.

Further enquiry led to the identification one of the victims, who confirmed the assault. The police is yet to establish him as a thief.

Professional Rivalry

The next step, police said, was questioning vendors at the Parel fish market. They added that fisherfolk in Mumbai have their own groups and loyalties. The next lead came from a group of fishermen who were professional rivals of the accused. When shown the video, these fishermen recognised the accused and provided additional information about them, including names and addresses, said investigating officers.

On Friday morning, poliice arrested Haaris Sheikh, 24, and Nazim Sheikh, 23, from Dadar.

The police had laid a trap for the duo at Parel station early on Friday morning, but they had changed their area of operation and had switched off their cellphones after the video clip went viral.

The duo were booked for assault, intentional insult to provoke breach of peace and obscene acts under the Indian Penal Code and produced in court later on Friday, where they were granted bail on personal bonds of Rs 15,000 each, police said.