A crackdown on fugitives who have evaded the law for years continues in Mumbai, with the latest arrest made by Bhoiwada Police. They apprehended a man who had been absconding for nearly 29 years in connection with attempted murder and robbery charges. The suspect, identified as Mohammad Rafiq alias Baba Abdul Sattar Sheikh, a resident of the Parel area, was arrested from the Antop Hill locality.
Senior Inspector Sachin Kadam of Bhoiwada Police Station revealed that during his years as a fugitive, Sheikh managed to stay hidden in Odisha and Jammu & Kashmir. With the help of confidential informants, a dedicated team that had been tracking him arrested him at Antop Hill.
According to Bhoiwada Police officials, the arrested man was involved in two separate incidents — an attempted murder in 1995 and a robbery in 1998. He was initially arrested in the 1995 case but managed to escape after being released on bail. Subsequently, his name surfaced in the 1998 robbery case, and he remained wanted since then. Due to his continued absence, the City Civil and Sessions Court had issued a non-bailable warrant against him, assigning the responsibility to Bhoiwada Police to bring him to justice.
In their investigation, the police gathered details from old records and traced his relatives, discovering that he had been moving between Odisha and Jammu & Kashmir. Recently, police received information that the accused had returned to Mumbai and was working as a trader in stolen goods in Chor Bazaar. Acting on a tip-off that he was visiting his relatives in Antop Hill, police kept the area under surveillance, eventually identifying and detaining him. During questioning, he confessed to being the fugitive wanted for nearly three decades.
Both cases are registered against the accused at Bhoiwada Police Station.