Venur (Beltangady): The Venur police have arrested Itte Barpe Abubakkar (71), a notorious inter-state thief, in connection with a gold ornament theft that occurred in Kutloor village of Beltangady taluk.
The theft took place at a house in Manjushree Nagar, where gold ornaments worth around Rs 9.50 lakh were stolen after the culprits broke open the main door lock while the residents were away.
On the night of November 11, PSI Oman and his team stopped a man on a scooter during a routine vehicle check. Suspicious of his behavior, they questioned him and soon discovered that the man was the wanted thief Abubakkar, known across Karnataka and Kerala for multiple thefts.
Preliminary investigations confirmed his involvement in the Kutloor house break-in, which had occurred at the residence of Avinash, a local resident. Avinash had locked his home on October 2 and returned on October 6, only to find the house ransacked and valuables missing. The stolen ornaments included a black-bead chain, a pearl chain, and gold chains totaling 149 grams.
Following his arrest, Abubakkar was produced before the Beltangady court, which remanded him to police custody until November 15. He reportedly admitted to selling the stolen jewellery. The operation was conducted under the leadership of Inspector Subbapurmath and the Venur Police team.
A native of Chikkamagaluru, Abubakkar currently resides near Kana, close to Suratkal. Over the past four decades, he has been repeatedly jailed for over 50 theft cases registered across Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chikkamagaluru, and even parts of Kerala.
Earlier this year, on June 27, he had broken into a house near Mattaru Temple under Shirva police limits, stealing gold worth Rs 7.5 lakh. He had only recently been released from prison before committing the latest crime.
Known widely by his alias ‘Itte Barpe Abubakkar’, he earned the nickname in the 1980s when he was an auto-rickshaw driver in Chikkamagaluru. His vehicle carried the title of a popular Yakshagana play, “Itte Barpe”, which became synonymous with his identity. Abubakkar was also once linked with the infamous Ripper Chandran gang, known for a string of daring burglaries across the region.
