Out of work footwear dealer among four held for robbery, assault

MUMBAI: Four men, one of them being an out-of-work

footwear dealer

, were arrested by the

Kandivali police

in connection with a two month old case where a shoe company staffer had been mugged. The victim, Irfan Farooqi, had sustained grievous injuries after the accused whacked him on the head with an iron rod and bamboo stick. One person is still on the run.

The arrested quartet are Rehan Ansari, 27, Shoaib Shaikh, 28, Shabbir Shaikh, 27, and Shadab Shaikh, 33. Of these, Ansari used to run a footwear dealership but did not do well and had to shut shop. He knew that Farooqi's job was to collect earnings from various footwear retail outlets and deposit the cash with the company that had employed him. "Ansari surveilled Farooqi's movements and gave a tip-off to a gang of professional robbers," said a police official. "Shoaib, Shabbir and Shadab have a past criminal record."

On August 16, Farooqi collected Rs 5.3 lakh in cash from retail outlets at Virar, Nalasopara and Bhayander. Around 7.15pm, he reached Laljipada at Kandivali West. Suddenly, two men accosted him and hit on the head with an iron rod and a bamboo stick. It's a busy stretch but nobody came to Farooqi's aid. The men snatched his bag of cash and escaped. A profusely bleeding Farooqi was rushed to the hospital for treatment.

"The accused had not masked their faces. We suspected right since the beginning that Farooqi had been tailed. The quartet was arrested on Monday. A magistrate court has remanded them to police custody till October 31," said inspector Sudhir Dalvi, Kandivali police.