The Mumbai police’s recruitment drive had an unexpected candidate—a 25-year-old petty thief from Ahmednagar who was caught with four phones and Rs 4,200 in cash on April 8. Police suspect he had been sneaking into the Kalina MU ground and stealing phones and cash from other candidates’ bags since April 3, when he came for his test. The constable deployed in the luggage room caught Akshay Pramod Borde, a resident of Ahmednagar, with a pocket full of phones and cash, and handed him over to the BKC police.

According to cops, Borde had come to the Kalina campus of the Mumbai University on April 3 and was issued a hall ticket for his physical test. However, taking advantage of the crowd of thousands of candidates arriving to the ground daily, he would sneak in using the same hall ticket. Police suspect he had been stealing aspirants’ phones and cash daily since.