Duo rob fancy clothes at knifepoint to pay off loans

Talk about an anticlimax. Cops may have failed to trace perpetrators of the chilling Malad double murders, but their attempts to that end helped Crime Branch officers from unit 11 arrest two men who had robbed 11 sets of salwar kameez from a showroom in Natraj Market in Malad.u00a0The two accused - identified as Jitendra Shah (37) and Nilesh Jayantilal (34) - threatened a garment owner at knifepoint on Tuesday, and made away with the dresses that were worth a total of u00a0Rs 80,000.

Vest-ed interests: Posing as customers, Shah and Jayantilal went to the Lakshmi Saree Centre, in Malad and picked out 11 salwar kameez sets.

The officers said that the two men had been carrying the fashionable booty around for three days, and intended to sell them to bar dancers to pay off pending loans with the money that it earned them. Posing as customers, Shah and Jayantilal went to the Lakshmi Saree Centre near the Malad railway station, and picked out 11 salwar kameez sets.

Shah convinced shop owner Jayesh Mothe to accompany him in his car as he took the clothes to his wife, so she could approve of them

Shah then convinced the shop owner, 39-year-old Jayesh Mothe, to accompany him to his wife, so she could approve of the ones he had picked out. Relenting, Mothe sat in Shah's car along with Jayantilal. But as the car reached Juhu, Shah threatened Jayesh at knifepoint to get out of the car and fled with the garments.

As the car reached Juhu, Shah threatened Jayesh at knifepoint to get out of the car and fled with the dresses.u00a0Illustrations/Amit Bandre

Raghunath Dalvi, senior police inspector of Crime Branch unit 11, said, "The two are residents of Dahisar and are unemployed at present. The two accused will be handed over to the Malad police station for further enquiries."

Anticlimax
Cops got wind of them when an informer gave them a tip-off that two members of the gang involved in the Malad double murder case were in Borivli to sell something. They nabbed Shah and Jayantilal to grill them about their role in the murders, but were shocked when the two pleaded to stealing fancy clothes. "We had picked them up thinking that they are from the gang that killed Paras Parmar (48) and his employee Hemant Bishnoi (35) in Malad earlier this month," said Dalvi.u00a0