One half of ‘Bunty-Babli’ duo strikes at Ekta Heights

It was high drama at the upscale Ekta Heights building in Khar West as residents and security blew the whistle literally on a thief on Thursday morning The 12storey structure with one flat on each floor is undergoing work like waterproofing painting and repairs and the thief made use of the scaffolding to scale the wallPrakash Jain secretary of the society said ldquoOur building camera surveillance showed that at approximately 345 am on March 3 a man clad in all black was scaling the building scaffoldingldquoHe started climbing the scaffolding and the security did not spot him He went to the fifth floor and entered the flat A resident woke up due to the noise and started shouting However the thief exited the flat via the scaffolding and went up to the 12th floor The floor was empty and locked from outsiderdquo he saidWhistle wakeupBy then shouts from the fifthfloor resident had alerted others The key moment was when the building security blew ldquotheir whistles which are specially given to the guards In fact every flat has been given a whistle so that the sound serves as a warning call telling people that something is wrongrdquo said JainThe housing society organised for whistles to all flats handy for raising an alarmSociety chairperson Jayasree Nair said ldquoI think giving the whistles was one of the best decisions This is a noisemaker that gets immediate attention After the alert was raised security car washers and even early morning staffers from another building in our compound came running with sticks It was game over for the thiefrdquo Nair and Jain said the residents called the Khar police and cops arrived soon afterNot movingThe curtain however did not fall on the drama which had been on for more than an hour The thief after entering the 12thfloor flat that was locked from outside was sitting inside ldquocomfortablyrdquo said Nair ldquoHe probably thought he was safer with the police than the residentsrdquo said Nair with a little laughSociety treasurer Dharmendra Savansukha said ldquoThis was a professional thief and a repeat offender as people had rightly suspected with his adept climbing We heard the police knew him They were calling him lsquoRahulrsquo and asked him to come out of the flat We also learnt that he had been released from prison just a month agordquoPolice plauditsldquoThe police were impressively speedy and responsiverdquo said Savansukha with a special mention for subinspector Sachin Trimukhe from Khar police station ldquoSince Rahul did not come out after repeated orders cops broke open the door He had a backpack with a mobile phone and a watch A wallet which he had stolen from the fifth floor was later found inside the flatrdquo said committee membersNair said ldquoLater on Friday we learnt that this repeat offender had also entered the secondfloor flat which was empty and locked and rummaged through it pulling out things from cupboards literally turning it upside downrdquoCopSpeakSubinspector Trimukhe said ldquoThe accused is Rahul Gurav a habitual offender He had been in prison for two years and was released a month agordquoHe added ldquoRahul targets buildings with scaffolding In 2019 we had caught him along with his cooffender Kishore N We dub them lsquoBunty and Bablirsquo This man has a penchant for stealing watches jewellery perfumes expensive bags though he will not harm the occupant He also steals expensive alcohol bottles In fact a couple of years ago the duo had wreaked havoc in Khar Bandra and Santacruz areas He is currently in police custodyrdquo345 amTime the thief was seen scaling the building