Mumbai: Bandra family spots intruder at home in middle of night, pins him down

The suspected entry point and the bathroom where the man was hiding

A senior citizen couple and their daughters were horrified to discover a stranger in their sixth-floor flat at a plush society on Hill Road of Bandra in the early hours of Tuesday. The family members pinned down the intruder, but he managed to break free and escape out of a sliding window. He is yet to show up in the CCTV footage of the society, named Trishul. The elderly woman of the house first spotted the man after she woke up to use the washroom and went to check on her daughters who were sleeping in the adjoining bedrooms.

The intruder escaped through this window, the family says

I generally check if everything is fine. As the AC was on I shut their rooms. I was about to go back when I heard a strange sound. I saw one of the rooms I had just shut was slightly open. I checked the room and everything seemed fine. That's when I heard some sound from the fourth bedroom, which is seldom used and is always open. Our main door was locked securely, but I still had to double check," she said.

As the 65-year-old woman entered the bedroom, she saw a fair-skinned person in his early twenties, wearing a yellow T-shirt and colourful trousers, hiding behind the shower partition. He was skinny and around five-foot-three-inch tall, she said.

The woman panicked and tripped on a marble temple and banged her head on it. Bleeding profusely, she screamed for help, which woke up her 72-year-old husband, a retired businessman and a cancer survivor. The husband caught hold of the intruder by his backpack, while one of their daughters started hitting the man with her slipper.

The 65-year-old woman suffered a deep gash on her head after she tripped in panic

"I had no option but to confront the intruder, who could have been armed. In the scuffle, one of the backpack holders broke and he wriggled out of my grip and escaped. While my daughter alerted the security staff over the intercom, I rushed to see if all was ok with my wife, who had to be rushed to the hospital for stitches and an MRI Brain scan," he said.

His daughter said she hit the man with whatever she could lay her hands on at the time as she feared he could have pulled her father down six floors. "He used the grills and swung down the building like a monkey and seemed like a seasoned thief," she told mid-day.

Yatin Dossa, the society secretary, said they were still unable to capture the image of the intruder despite having nine CCTV cameras in their compound. "It is possible that he sneaked in and was hiding within the society premises. The police have discovered a footprint in one of the bedrooms, which could be the entry point. Plus, have taken custody of the red and yellow backpack. We are hoping that police increase the vigilance in our area, so that such things do not repeat," he said. API Hemanth Phad of Bandra police station said they have registered a case and the investigation is on.

Nine
No. of CCTV cameras in the society

Sixth
Floor the family resides on and where the thief struck