The crime branch made the arrests while investigating a theft at Bandra in November last year in which a woman was attacked. The arrested accused have been identified as Tej Bahadur Chedilal Morya alias Vijay (23) and Sharif Ramzaan Shaikh (20). Both the arrested are residents of Juhu.

One of the arrested is an expert cat burglar. He would break into flats by climbing the pipes along the walls of buildings.

Unit 10 of the Crime Branch arrested the duo on December 25.

According to the police, on November 2 the Bandra police received a complaint from Sayida Mushtaq Kathawala (43), a resident of a flat on the fourth floor of Sea Breeze building at Bandra Bandstand. Kathawala lives alone in the flat as her husband and son are employed in the Gulf.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said, “At about 10 pm the night before, she shut all the doors and went to sleep only to wake up in the morning sensing someone else was in the flat. On seeing a shadow moving in the room, she cried out loud. One of the burglar placed knife on her neck and asked her to keep quiet. They also asked her to hand over the keys to the safe. Her hands were then tied behind her back with a dupatta, after which the burglar robbed gold ornaments worth Rs6.72 lakh from the safe.”

“Working on information, Unit 10 arrested Morya, the man who had broken into the flat. During his interrogation, he led us to his associate Shaikh. Both have already admitted to having committed at least 20 other undetected house break-in and theft cases in Bandra, Khar and Santacruz. Besides this, they have also admitted to seven cases of bag snatching in DN Nagar and Versova areas,” said Maria. According to the police, Morya has 10 offences of house break-in and thefts registered against him at the Juhu, Oshiwara and D N Nagar police stations. Out of these he has been convicted in six cases.