Mumbai Crime: 40-year-old man held for stealing antique items worth Rs 70 lakh from Oshiwara mall

Police team with the recovered items. Pic/Shirish Vaktania

A 40-year-old man was recently arrested for stealing antique items from a shop inside Hira Panna Mall located next to Oshiwara police station.

The incident occurred in November when the shop owner, Bhagwan Pritam Das Khatvani, was out of station. When he reached Mumbai and tried to open his shop, he realised that the lock has been changed. Khatvani got alarmed and informed Oshiwara police.

"I was in Jaipur on vacation and when I reached Mumbai to reopen my shop, the lock was changed. I called the police who asked me to open the shutter via a duplicate key. After I opened the shop, many valuable items including antique flower pot, idols, silver dish, English art, French statue, etc were missing," Khatvani told mid-day.

Though the cops asked Khatvani to register an FIR but he asked for some time to assess the value of missing antique pieces from his shop. Khatvani also started his own investigation to learn who entered his shop and changed the main lock when he was holidaying in Jaipur.

"I also tried to scan the CCTV footage of the Heera Panna mall but the storage is reserved only for 20 days. Then I thought of recalling people who visited my shop. During the investigation, my needle of suspicion pointed towards Vinod Kumar Mahato alias Ankit Mahato who had visited my shop with a common friend," said Khatvani, who added that he started to call in all the visitors one by one who had visited his shop in his absence.

The security personnel of the mall had seen Vinod visiting the shop thrice in November. "Before calling the visitors to my shop, I had told the security personnel of the mall to alert me if the suspect walks in to my shop," he said.

"The moment Vinod walked in to my shop, the security personnel alerted me," he added.

The shop owner then registered an FIR and the police recently arrested Vinod from Vile Parle.

"During the investigation we learnt that the accused had visited his shop thrice November 9, 11 and 15. He had taken the imprint of keys on soap when the owner was away and got a duplicate key made," said an officer attached to Oshiwara police station.

"The total value of stolen antique items was Rs 70 lakh. Lalique, a French artist, had created an antique bottle with six glasses worth Rs 5 lakh in 1925, the accused stole it too. It is yet to be recovered," the officer added.

An officer privy to the investigation said that items worth around Rs 60 lakh have been recovered. Another officer said, "The accused had given these items on rent to movie sets to earn money. Most of the items were recovered from his house in Budhwar Park."

Vinod was booked under sections 454 (trespassing), 457 (house break-in by night in order to commit offence), 380 (theft in dwelling house) of the Indian Penal Code.