A police team went through CCTV footage of nearly 500 cameras to track the accused in the Saif Ali Khan case. The most distinct feature of the accused across locations was his shoes.
A team led by DCP Dikshit Gedam went through the footage from the actor’s building, then Linking Road and Bandra station, then Dadar and Worli and finally to Thane. The team included ACP Adikrao Pol, senior inspector Sanjay Marathe, inspectors Ajay Lingnurkar and Sachin Rane, assistant inspectors Vijay Acharaker, Bajrang Jagtap, Tushar Sawant and staff.
After the accused escaped from the actor’s flat, he roamed around Bandra and Khar for almost five and half hours before he caught a train from Bandra station to Dadar. By then he had a haircut, bath and changed his clothes.
“When we started scanning the CCTV we found the accused near Sadhu Vaswani Petrol pump in Bandra (West) on Linking road where he was found to have changed his shirt. As he knew there was CCTV ahead, he crossed the road. But he was caught in the CCTV of a Khar hotel. After walking for almost an hour and half he slept at Khar station at 4 am and then came back to Bandra in the morning and caught a train at 8 am to Dadar,” said police.
“We watched the leg and the shoe for three hours and finally found the person on the CCTV near National College in Khar. It matched the CCTV image of the actor’s building. Then we found him at Bandra station and then outside Dadar where he bought some mobile accessories before he boarded a bus to Worli on January 16. He walked till Worli-Koliwada and stayed in a room where the pub staff hired by Pandey stayed. “On Jan 17, in the afternoon he left Worli and went to Thane and hid in a labour camp before he was arrested,” said police.
DCP (Zone IX) Dikshit Gedam said, "He had illegally entered the country before reaching Mumbai. He was in Mumbai and Thane for the last six months and has used different names. We are collecting details about the documents he has created. He moved to Thane a few months ago before he returned to Mumbai 15 days ago before executing the offence. He was working with some housekeeping agency in Thane before he committed the offence and was caught within 72 hours."
He was in dire need of money and was willing to rob anyone and escape to Bangladesh,’’ said another officer.
During the search in Thane, the police team had almost lost hope after searching the area on the outskirts of the city through Saturday and Sunday night.
