The Aarey police arrested two men on Monday for allegedly breaking into a star hotel at Royal Palms by drilling a hole in its wall and stealing an antique statue worth R7 lakh. They then chopped it up into several pieces and hid them in the forest.

One of the arrested accused was identified as Ismail Shaikh, 21, the nephew of a criminal Ameen Pathan, who is serving a life sentence for murder. Ismail and his co-accused Jalal Shaikh, 21, broke the wall of the Imperial Palace hotel, created a tunnel and entered it on October 12.