Gujarat: This thief owns swanky bungalows with CCTVs, motion sensors, cars

VADODARA/ ANAND: Navghan Talpada, an accused who was arrested by Anand police in connection with a robbery in Kheda’s Nadiad town last week, has proved to be a big catch for the cops.
Navghan used to fly to cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai, stay in hotels for a couple of days, conduct recces before targeting unoccupied bungalows in Southern cities of India.
Sources said that the robber, who has now been handed over to Kheda police, owns two posh bungalows in Ode village of Anand’s Umreth taluka and Kheda’s Nadiad town.
These bungalows, said to be of the size of farmhouses, are equipped with digitally sophisticated 360-degree revolving CCTV cameras with night vision and motion sensors as well.
“Locally, he would move around in suits, travel in cars and has two lavish bungalows with all possible digitally-sophisticated equipments. You won’t even realise that he is a thief,” said a top police official.
But the historysheeter, who has nearly 22 offences registered against him has been arrested multiple times by Tamil Nadu police for burglaries in Chennai.
“He used to board flights to Hyderabad, Chennai from Ahmedabad, Baroda and Mumbai airport. His local source would already have done recce for him.
But he would stay in hotels for a couple of days, carry out recce himself and after carrying out robbery, he would return to Gujarat the next day,” said the official.
“We also had similar modus operandi thefts. So, we had started collecting data of similar thefts in nearby areas. The Kheda offence came out in it,” said Anand district superintendent of police Ajit Rajian.
Last week, Anand local crime branch and special operations group had nabbed Navghan along with two others in connection to robbery at a bungalow owned by owner of C M Smith & Sons Limited in Nadiad and recovered gold and silver ornaments amounting to Rs 45.95 lakh from them.
Post arrest, Navghan confessed to three other burglaries including two in Hyderabad and one in Chennai. “While he had made two trips before lockdown, he had made his last trip after flight operations resumed,” said the official, adding that he used to avoid being digitally traced by keeping his cellphone at home while travelling outside the state.
Interestingly, the class XII pass-out is well-versed with law, the police procedures and can even find technical loopholes, cops close to the investigation said.