Mumbai: Tattoo helps police track down accused in 15-year-old case

Mumbai: Mumbai police on Thursday arrested a 63-year-old man who was absconding for the past 15 years in a housebreaking and theft case after working on the input that the accused has a tattoo on his hand, an official said.

Armugam Pallaswami Devendra Mudaliar, then a resident of Antop Hill in central Mumbai, was nabbed from the Fort area in South Mumbai, the official said. He was working for a travel agency using a fake identity.

Mudaliar, who faces more than five cases in Mumbai and Gujarat, was wanted in a theft and housebreaking case registered in 2008 at Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Marg police station, he said.

As he was untraceable, a local court declared him as absconding, he said.

The RAK Marg police recently started the investigation afresh and began looking for him at Kalyan, Bhandup and Mahim, he said.
Initially, police got the information that Mudaliar had fled to Tamil Nadu and there were even speculations that he was no more, he said.

A team working on the case learnt from police records that Mudaliar has a tattoo on his hand. The team also found his signature, he said.

With the help of these details, police tracked Mudaliar to the city’s Fort area on Thursday, he said. After verification of the tattoo and his signature, police arrested him in the 15-year-old case, he said.