PANAJI
The North Goa police have solved 19 house burglary cases that occurred during the last six months following confessions of two accused arrested last week. The police recovered 442 grams of stolen gold, which had been melted and sold to a local jeweller in Margao.
On October 3, the Porvorim Police arrested two locals - a 44-year-old habitual offender Maria Baptista from Benaulim, and his accomplice, a 20-year-old BCom student Mohd Sufiyan from Navelim. The duo was involved in a series of organised house burglaries across North Goa.
Interrogation revealed that the alleged thieves were operating in North Goa and were also involved in house burglaries in the south district.
“For the last six months, our crime teams in North Goa have observed a pattern of house burglaries involving masked men. Various cases were registered across different police stations in both North and South Goa," North Goa SP Akshat Kaushal said at a press conference held at police headquarters on Friday.
"During a detailed interrogation, Baptista confessed to being one of these masked men. Since February 2024, he and Sufiyan have been breaking into homes at night in various areas.”
Baptista also admitted to handing over the stolen gold ornaments to Filip Rato, a resident of Benaulim. “Rato then sold the gold to Samar Pal, a jeweller with a small workshop in Margao. Both Rato and Pal were traced and arrested by the Porvorim Police,” the SP added.
In the investigation, 442 grams of stolen gold in melted form was recovered from Deepak Bandodkar, a jeweller in Margao, and Pal. Besides this, 100 grams of stolen gold has been tracked and is expected to be recovered soon.
With this, 19 cases at police stations in Ponda (5), Porvorim (4), Panaji (4), Agassaim (2), Anjuna (2), Mapusa (1) and Old Goa (1), have been cracked.
