Late Sunday evening, the senior police inspector of the Shahu Nagar police station had said they had neither arrested nor questioned anybody by the name of Sayyed Ali.

Sayyed was picked up from his residence on February 26, according to his brother Karamat Ali, who petitioned the Kurla court seeking help in tracing him.

According to Karamat Ali, his elder brother Sayyed, who had been picked up on February 26 by officers of the Unit 5 crime branch and kept in illegal detention ever since without informing the family members about his whereabouts, was brought to the Shahu Nagar police station late yesterday night and produced in the magistrate court today morning. “The crime branch had illegally detained my brother since February 26, but his arrest was shown to be the night before he was produced by the Shahu Nagar police. My brother is innocent and has nothing to do with any robbery that the police are trying to frame him for.”

After Sayyed was produced in court and remanded to police custody for a day, Senior Police Inspector Mahadev Gundewadi of the Shahu Nagar police station said: “Sayyed was handed over to our police station today at 10 am by officers of the Crime Branch Unit 5 for his role in a robbery of Rs 7.50 lakh which had taken place on January 22 on the Sion-Dharavi bridge. A businessman from Kalbadevi who regularly withdrew cash from a bank was passing by and was robbed. After arresting the guard and interrogating him, it had become clear that Sayyed’s role was that of the link between the security guard at the bank who had this information about the businessman’s trips and the robbers who were tipped off about the schedule. Sayyed had acted as the liaison between the guard and the robbers and had also received a sum of Rs 40,000 from the gang of robbers. The said amount has also been recovered from him by the Crime Branch officers.”

While Karamat Ali had alleged that it was the Crime Branch Unit 5 that had picked up his brother and kept him in detention for five days, Senior Police Inspector of Unit 5 Dilip Rupawate had denied ever picking up Sayyed Ali for questioning, although Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria later admitted that Sayyed had been picked up.