Investigation:
On the afternoon of March 19, 1987, Arvind Inamdar, from Mumbai Crime division, received an urgent phone call at his office at the Police Headquarters in Mumbai.
The call was about an odd happening in Opera House.
Inamdar was told that a CBI raid had taken place at Tribhovandas Bhimji Zhaveri (TBZ), the most prestigious jeweler of all the jewelry shops in Opera house.
As per the report, "They came in, pulled down the shutters, ordered customers and staff to wait and took the registers".
This is standard CBI procedure!
But in this case Police were also informed that CBI had taken a lot of jewelry, cash and has fled the scene.
Mystified, police rushed to the spot and were surprised to find that the 'CBI team' that staged the raid was still there, except for their leader, who they knew as 'Mohan Singh'.
Police now knew this is a bold day light robbery!
After hearing the whole story, police carried on their investigation at The Taj and found that Mon Singh did arrive at the hotel sometime in the evening. But after reaching the hotel, he had asked the bell boy to arrange a taxi for him and had left the hotel with all his luggage.
They also found that, Mon Singh got down from the taxi somewhere near Vile Parle and took an auto.
Investigations also found that the CBI ID's that Mon Singh distributed were fake ones as expected!
It's all blank from there! There's NO TRACE of what happened after that!
Though it all looked cold, police did try to trace Mon Singh in other ways.
They issued a nationwide alert and also sent a special team to Kerala since he had shared a Kerala address at the hotel. Police first arrested a man named George Augustine Fernandes, but later released him as he turned out to be a petty thief.
Police also tried to find some possible gang connections, but they were not able to find any connections!
Since Mon Singh seems to be very much familiar with CBI operations, police also tried to investigate from 'CBI officer gone rogue' angle! But extensive checks of CBI records didn't find any productive results!
Police even sent a team to Dubai, since they got tips that Mon Singh might be there, but no luck!
It looks as if Mon Singh appeared to have acted all alone and have disappeared without leaving any trace!
This case remains unsolved as of today and can be considered as one of the PERFECT CRIME!
Movies
Hindi Movie Special 26 was inspired by this incident.
The same movie is all set to be remade in Tamil by Prashanth.
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