Hyderabad: The South Zone Team of Commissioner’s Task Force on Tuesday arrested two persons who are involved in the sensational night burglary at H.E.H Nizam Museum in Purani Haveli and recovered stolen antique golden items studded with precious diamonds and rubies.
The arrested accused persons have been identified as Mohd Ghouse Pasha, 23, and Mohd Mubeen, 24. Both are residents of Rajender Nager.
Police recovered a three tier gold Tiffin box studded with precious diamonds and rubies (wg. about 1950 grams), one Gold cup and saucer with precious stones (wg. about 172 grams) and one gold tea spoon (wg. about 14 grams)
Addressing a press conference, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar informed that the accused Mohd. Ghouse Pasha and Mohd. Mubeen are distant relatives as well as childhood friends. Both are brought up from the same locality of Dairy Farm, Rajendra Nagar.
Ghouse Pasha is a 7th class (urdu medium) dropout. He first committed an offence in the year 2011. He is so far involved in about (15) House theft, House breaking and Automobile thefts. Lastly he was arrested in the month of August, 2017 by Rajendra Nagar P.S and released on bail in the month of July, 2018.
Another accused Mohd. Mubeen is a 2nd class (urdu medium) dropout. In the year 2015 he went to Saudi Arabia for livelihood. While in Saudi Arabia, he was imprisoned for about 2 ½ months as he beat one Pakistani national. About four months back, he was deported to India from Saudi Arabia.
Mohd. Mubeen after returning from Saudi Arabia happened to visit Nizam museum and was amused by seeing the precious artefacts-Gold Tiffin box, Gold Cup & Saucer, Gold spoon and Holy Quran gold casing.
He discussed about committing theft of above artefacts with Ghouse as they are antique pieces and worth crores of rupees in domestic as well as international market. He planned to use his international relations in disposing them. As per their plan, initially Ghouse went to Museum and observed the location of gold tiffin box in the museum.
As the museum spreads over a long corridor, in order to avoid confusion, he fixed the landmark by identifying a dried up tree which is quite opposite to the location of tiffin box. After three days, both came in the night and did reccee of the entire premises and took note of the surroundings and the location of CCTV cameras.
On the same day, they put up “arrow” mark over the ventilator through which they have to enter into the museum and over the parapet wall corresponding to the ventilator. They also analysed which tools are useful to them in the commission of offence.
On the day of offence, they carried with them three screw drivers of various sizes, cutting plier, nail puller, ten hack-saw blades and rope for removing ventilator and getting into the museum from the top. They prepared about thirty (30) knots all over the rope for grip.
They also purchased hand gloves to avoid finger prints and masks to avoid identification. They also avoided carrying mobile phone to the place of offence. They planned to enter into Museum through the routes devoid of CCTV cameras, but failed to get into the museum.
Finally they reached the museum through Mata-ki-khidki side over the Bajaj Pulsar motorcycle of Mubeen and got captured in CCTV footages.
They reached the roof of the museum from the terrace of the residential house whose wall is abutting to the wall of the museum. This route was selected by them at the time of reccee.
They reached the place of offence easily by identifying the “arrow” marks on the parapet wall. Ghouse and Mubeen carefully removed the ventilator with the instruments they carried with them. As Mubeen is physically weak compared to Ghouse, and is easy to be glided up or down the rope, Mubeen volunteered to go inside the museum.
Ghouse tied one end of the rope to the parapet wall and other end to the waist of Mubeen and released him slowly inside the museum through the ventilator. Before that they damaged the camera inside the museum which is erected right beneath that ventilator.
Mubeen who entered into the museum, took out the Gold Tiffin box, Gold Cup & Saucer and Gold spoon from the showcase and put them in a bag and climbed up using the rope, which was pulled by Ghouse from other end. Later both of them exited from the museum through the same route used for entry.
To avoid being tracked by police in CCTV cameras, they avoided main roads and moved through by-lanes haphazardly and reached Muthangi of Sangareddy District located on the Mumbai Highway. At Muthangi ORR, they changed their route and took to service road along the ORR and travelled towards Hyderabad.
As they felt insecure to carry the stolen property and feared of being caught by Police, they dug a pit in an open area near Dairy farm area of Rajendra Nagar and kept the entire stolen property in it. Later they again took the same route and reached Zaheerabad.
At Zaheerabad their motorcycle broke down. So they abandoned their motorcycle near the bus stand and reached Mumbai through public transport system. At Mumbai they tried for possible buyers in the domestic market.
Mubeen through his international relations also tried to find possible buyers abroad, but in vain. Finally they returned to Hyderabad on 10.09.18 after all their attempts to dispose of the stolen property got exhausted.
On a tip off, on Tuesday the sleuths of South Zone Task Force and Mirchowk Police apprehended both the accused persons in the hillocks nearby Himayathsagar and recovered the entire stolen property.
The accused persons, Mohd. Ghouse Pasha and Mohd. Mubeen, along with recovered property was handed over to the SHO Mirchowk Police Station for taking further action against him.