25 May,2014 08:01 AM IST | | A Correspondent
Three men, arrested for robbing at least 200 women of their jewellery across four states, posed as cops and spoke five languages
The Navghar police on Saturday caught three fake policemen who could easily pass off as linguists. Gulam Malik, Kambar Razak and Akbar Sheikh chose to use their command over Tamil, Marathi, English, Urdu and Hindi to con unsuspecting women of their jewels and money.
(From left): Akbar Sheikh, Gulam Malik and Kambar Razak, who used their command over various regional languages to con women
According to the cops, they have over 200 cases against them in Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. When the Tamil Nadu police arrested them earlier this week, the trio confessed to conning at least 300 women, including cases under Navghar police station.
Gulam Malik is a resident of Kalyan while Razak and Sheikh are the resident of Ahmednagar. All three mostly targeted tourists in places like Goa, Kerala and Mumbai. According to the police sub inspector Shrikant Karande of Navghar police station, "In the last three months they have robbed many women in our area posing as police officers.
They would target elderly or single women, spin a story of a just-committed murder and scare the women into taking off their jewellery telling them to keep it in their bags instead. As the women took off their valuables, they would snatch the ornaments and run away."
According to police records over 200 cases are pending against the three in Goa, Tamil Nadu and Mumbai. They are wanted for robbing women at Mira Road, Bhayendar, Navghar, Dahisar and in south Mumbai. The Bhayendar Crime branch was also looking for them.
During interrogations, the trio admitted they could speak Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and English a skill that helped them approach women from different states with equal confidence.
The accused also told cops that after a heist they would go to Goa on holiday and target tourists there too. The gang's luck, however, finally ran out when the Tamil Nadu cops finally managed to catch them red-handed.
