On June 9, 2007, the five men — Fakirulla Shaikh, Salim Shaikh, Sohail Khan, Shaikh Mohammad and Ganesh Harijan — allegedly robbed one Tushar Kamble near Sitla Devi temple in Mahim.

Kamble, in his FIR lodged at the Mahim police station, said that the accused had snatched cash and mobile phone from him and escaped in a taxi. Soon after, he saw a police van approaching and raised an alarm after which the police chased down the robber’s taxi. The police managed to nab Fakirulla, but others managed to escape. “He was taken to Mahim police station and an FIR was registered around 1.30 am,” said lawyer Santosh Deshpande.

The police clubbed the case with another robbery incident where one Ritin Jain had complained of being robbed by a gang on the bridge connecting Mahim west to east on the same day at around 12.30 am. The police thus lodged one complaint saying that the two robberies were committed by the same accused at different places.

However, when the case came up for trial before Sessions Judge S C Chandak, the policemen and witnesses couldn’t agree on the place where Fakirulla was nabbed. “Moreover, the timings mentioned in the FIR of two robberies suggested that Jain was robbed by Fakirulla after he had already been taken into custody in the first case,” said Deshpande. Also, the police couldn’t specify the recovery made by them from the accused.