On the lam, gangster hides in secret cavity inside house

Surat: Drones, a huge posse of police personnel, and electronic surveillance: all of these were used in the hunt for Mohammad Sajid Kothari, a 44-year-old gangster who had escaped from police custody outside Lajpore Central Jail in January. And he still might have gotten away had it not been for eagle-eyed cops who spotted a mirror in his drawing room that seemed “a bit odd”.They knocked down the hidden recess behind the looking glass, and Kothari was finally arrested.
The entire operation took two and a half hours, said police who had combed through Kothari’s house and neighbourhood in Jamrukh Gali in Nanpura on Friday. They also nabbed his associate Mohammad Samir Shaikh, (33) from the neighbouring building.
Police commissioner Ajay Tomar said, “Kothari’s arrest is important since he is the only accused who has been booked under GUJCTOC twice.”
Several teams of the crime branch raided Jamrukh Gali after a specific tip about Kothari’s location. After deploying bandobast, the police tried to enter Amanat — a multi-storeyed building where he lived with his family on the first floor. He ran his office on the ground floor. Police said, “The women in the family threw chairs and other furniture at us from the first floor window. We then used a ladder and various tools to climb to the first floor and break open a window.”
After entering the house, the police searched for half an hour but could not find the gangster. “We then looked for him in the adjoining apartment but he was not to be found there either,” said a crime branch official.
Later cops returned to Amanat. “One of us saw the mirror and decided to investigate it. When he knocked on it, it sounded hollow. We called people to break the door we found behind the mirror and nabbed Kothari who was hiding in a 10x12 ft space,” said police.
Kothari has been booked in 51 criminal cases so far including two GUJCTOC cases, one murder, and 11 cases of rioting and assault on cops. He was remanded to police custody for 12 days.