Thane

thief

gold

Byculla

CCTV

Things cops have to do: Crook’s faeces had to be checked each time he defecated in custodycops were put on an extremely unpleasant assignment last week after a corneredswallowed achain he had nicked: they had to examine his faeces every time he used the toilet in custody.Suspect Sadik Sheikh, who was fed laxatives and bananas to make him expel the chain, passed stools at least eight times in two days, but the evidence of his crime remained stuck inside. On Saturday, fed-up cops brought him to JJ Hospital in, where doctors administered an enema that did the job.The chain was disinfected and submitted in a court. It belongs to one Tejas Patil, who, one officer joked, may never put it around his neck again knowing where it has been.Sheikh has been involved in around a dozen chain snatchings and thefts in Thane, according to the Raboli police who arrested him on December 15. Curiously, he only targeted men. He would deliberately bump into his victims and a pick fight before skilfully swiping their chains. The victims would realise their precious threads are missing much later.“Now that we have obtained the evidence [Patil’s chain] andfootage from areas where chain thefts were reported, we will reopen old cases,” said the investigating officer, assistant inspector Vivek Ahire. “The video recordings show Sheikh milling about in the areas.”Cops had been keeping tabs on Sheikh for the past week. They nabbed him moments after he grabbed Patil’s chain in a crowded locality on December 15. But he immediately gulped it down in a bid to conceal his crime. “He first tried to free himself and run. Realising there was no way out, he swallowed the chain,” Ahire said.The police took Sheikh to a hospital, where X-rays showed the piece of jewellery lodged in his gut. Surgery was an option, but authorities decided to put him on a course of laxatives and potassium-rich food.“The doctors said the chain would come out with his stool and we should wait for two days instead of directly going for an enema. We followed their advice,” Ahire said.Sheikh defecated four to five times the next day and each time, cops at the Raboli police station had to check his excrement. They had no luck. “He was deliberately not pushing hard enough,” said a constable.On Saturday, Sheikh again used the toilet multiple times, but there was no sign of the chain. Cops struck gold after he was made to undergo a procedure at JJ for cleaning the bowels.A court has remanded him in the Raboli police’s custody for three days, but they will seek an extension to quiz him about old cases. “We are trying to identify his accomplices with the help of the CCTV footage,” Ahire said.