Thane: Mother turned minor son into chain snatcher

Anti-Robbery Sqaud arrests key accused Fatima Sanjay Irani, whose modus operandi involved using minors to commit crimes

Seventeen-year-old Rehman Irani's (name changed) mother, Fatima Sanjay Irani, never dreamt of her son becoming an engineer or doctor some day. All that she wanted her son to be was a skilled chain snatcher. However, what she didn't realise was that this skill would land him behind bars one day. The Anti-Robbery Squad of Kalyan has arrested five people, who were involved in a number of chain-snatching cases in Kalyan and Dombivli. Police said that it was Fatima who turned them into thieves when they were minors, because if they got caught, then they would be sent to remand homes and be out on bail easily.

According to the police, the arrested accused have been identified as Hussaini Muktar Ansari, Fatima Sanjay Irani, Mustafa Sanjay Sayed, Farha Hafiz Khan, Alihasan Afsar Jafari and Fatima's son Rehman. During investigation, the cops found that Hussaini and Rehman used to conduct the thefts along with their friends. All of them are residents of Iranipada in Ambivli near Kalyan. They also learnt that the Pimpri police in Pune had earlier arrested Hussaini and another youth.

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Avinash Palde, sub-inspector, Anti-Robbery Squ-ad, Zone 3, Kalyan, said, "In his statement, Hussaini revealed that two others -- Shabbir Sayed and Hujju Sayed -- were also involved in committing thefts along with them. They used to hand over the booty to Fatima and she kept all the ornaments with her. Six cases have been detected and a total of 12.5 tola of gold worth R2.39 lakh has been recovered from her."

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"During interrogation Mustafa said that he used to give the stolen jewellery to Farha for selling it. A total of 16 gms of gold worth Rs 37,000 has been recovered from her. Further probe into the matter led to the arrest of Alihasan, from whom 30 gms of gold worth Rs 45,000 and a motorcycle worth R40,000 was seized," said Hemant Dhole, sub-inspector, Anti-Robbery Squad, Zone 3, Kalyan.

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An officer of the squad further mentioned, "Whenever we launched a search operation, Fatima and her son used to escape to their native place in Karnataka. Acting on a tip-off that they would come to the city for a Muharram procession, we laid a trap and arrested them."

Sanjay Shinde, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 3, Kalyan, said, "The arrest of all the six accused has helped in cracking most of the chain-snatching cases in the city."

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