ITANAGAR, Aug 25: A team of the capital police arrested one Bake Takar on the intervening night of 23 and 24 August in connection with the robbery at the Best Bakers bakery near the civil secretariat here on the night of 16 August, after the employees of the bakery identified Takar by his moustache and his voice.
Capital SP Tumme Amo informed that Takar (30) was picked up as a suspect as his looks matched that of the person seen in the shop’s CCTV camera recording, and on the basis of the details provided by the employees and eyewitnesses.
“As per the description given by the victims, the accused was wearing a helmet and fled away on a motorcycle. He had a thin moustache, appeared like a tribal, and was tall,” the SP said.
The police had also picked up seven other suspects who had earlier committed similar robberies, but the victims and eyewitness could not ascertain that they were involved in robbing the bakery.
Amo said the victims identified Takar by his moustache. “His moustache is exactly like what we saw. His height is also the same, and it is 100 percent his voice,” the SP quoted the victims as saying.
Reportedly, the suspect first claimed to have been in Parsi Parlo, in Kurung Kumey district, on the night of the incident, and said he had arrived in Itanagar on 20 August to receive treatment for typhoid at the RK Mission Hospital.
In view of his alibi, the suspect had been let off in the morning of 24 August, the SP said.
However, a police team led by ASI AK Jha, under the supervision of the SP, interrogated Takar again in the afternoon of 24 August, confronting him with his medical documents which showed that he was in fact in Itanagar on 10 August, much before the date of the robbery.
“He tried to explain that he is very sick and cannot remember his date of arriving in Itanagar,” Amo said, adding that “to make sure that he was in Itanagar on 16 August, his call detail records were obtained last night and as per records, he was moving around Ganga and Raj Bhavan areas on 16 August. He was produced before the court here, which has remanded him to 13 days of judicial custody.”
According to the statement of the motorcycle’s owner (brother of the accused), the suspect had been using the motorcycle since the first week of August, including on the day of the robbery.
Investigation also revealed that the accused had earlier been involved in similar cases in Ziro in Lower Subansiri district.
In the instant case, the bakery’s owner had filed a complaint with the police regarding the robbery. According to the complaint, a young man wearing a helmet entered the shop at around 8 pm, brandishing a machete at the sales boy there, and robbed the cash from the bakery’s cash counter.