Sharik was once a petty burglar who worked variously as a bus conductor in Delhi’s infamous blue line buses, a truck driver, and even a security guard. The 49-year-old man, now living in Dubai, has emerged as the kingpin of north India’s biggest vehicle theft operation.
The name of Sharik alias Sata, son of a former Mumbai university professor, has come up thrice in the past six months, and twice in the past 20 days, during the interrogation of car thieves. They described Sata as their boss who allegedly takes “orders of vehicles needed“ from places as far as Manipur and Assam and gets his accomplices to steal them in Delhi and its adjoining states.
On November 9, police arrested a man named Akbar Ali for stealing vehicles and selling them to buyers in West Bengal, Assam and Manipur. Ali told police he works for Sata and has sent at least 200 stolen vehicles from the national capital region (NCR) to those states in the past one year.
The following week, when another police unit arrested a man in Manipur and recovered 14 Toyota Fortuner and Hyundai Creta cars, also stolen from NCR, the man said he worked for Sata.
It wasn’t always like this.
Until four years ago, Sata was one among many car thieves in the national capital. He was last arrested in 2018, and served time for three months before being released on bail. He then he went off the radar, said a crime branch officer, an expert on vehicle theft gangs.
For a man missing for almost two years since he jumped bail following his arrest in November 2018, police heard Sata’s name in August when two men were arrested with counterfeit notes worth ₹4 lakh. The men were arrested from Sarai Kale Khan and said they were working for Sharik Sata, who worked from Dubai and was aided by Pakistani agencies.
Sharik worked for the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, and was tasked to circulate fake currency in India, Delhi Police had said in a statement on August 21, 2021.
In the backdrop of these three cases since August that linked Sata’s name with fake currency and vehicle theft, police was not amused, given Sata’s abilities and his history of working at different places.
“He has an interesting crime career and did all sorts of things before becoming a top vehicle thief in Delhi,” a Delhi police officer said while reading out Sata’s confessional statement when he was arrested in 2013 for stealing a car from west Delhi.
Sata told police in his statement that he was son of a retired professor who taught Islamic studies in the University of Mumbai. “They are from a small place called Geeta Sarai, Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh. For some reason, Sata could not study and fell into bad company,” said the police officer, who had questioned him in the past.
Sata told police that after dropping out of school in class 8, he started working as a labourer in Sambhal and then as a helper for a truck driver. It was at that time that he had come in touch with a man named Mohammed Noor from his village and started burgling homes. Records show he was first arrested for a theft inside a house in Moradabad in 1996.
His statement, a copy of which was seen by HT, showed that he had come to Delhi in 1996 and worked as a truck driver at Randhawa Transport Company in Azadpur. After a year, he started working as bus conductor for blueline bus route number 19 between Jahangirpuri and Regal cinema.
“During 1997 and 2000, he also worked as a field security officer for a security company in Greater Kailash. He wanted to increase his knowledge of topography of Delhi and these jobs were perfect alibi for him to roam in these areas of Delhi. While working as a field officer, he had come in touch with some vehicle thieves, with whom he got together and started stealing the vehicles at night. He initially worked for different gangs, but later formed his own gang,” reads the police’s report based on Sata’s confession in 2013.
The police report quotes Sata as someone who recruited many people from Meerut and Sambhal to steal cars. Sata has allegedly divided the gang members in different groups.
“They specialise in stealing SUVs, mostly cars such as Toyota Fortuner and Creta. He has divided the gangs in different states. In Manipur, when we arrested a man last month, we found out that he was a top car dealer there, who sold the stolen vehicles. We had recovered at least 10 Fortuner vehicles. He sells the stolen cars for as low as ₹10-12 lakh. He must be making crores of rupees,” said an officer, who arrested the Manipur resident last month. All the police officers declined to be named.
Sata in his confession told police that said his real name was Sharik, but nobody called him by that name. In north India’s world of vehicle thieves, for the past one decade, he is known only as Sata. He also said there was a reason why he was called by that name. His friends started calling him Sata (60 in Hindi) because he could drive stolen vehicles at over 60km per hour even in the shortest of stretches.
While different Delhi Police teams are at work to identify the gangs in north Delhi who work for Sata, the man has number of gangs working in Uttar Pradesh as well.
He carries a reward of ₹50,000 by Uttar Pradesh Police for his arrest in the cases registered in that state. A crime dossier on Sata maintained by Delhi Police showed he has in the past been booked by Uttar Prades Police under laws such as the Gangster Act, Goonda Act and the National Security Act (NSA) of 1980, along with at least 45 othercriminal cases.
“He is a smooth talker despite being a class 8 dropout. We won’t be surprised if the Pakistan agencies got in touch with him and are using his criminal network to fund their illegal activities here. Despite being booked under the NSA and the gangster Act, he has always jumped bail and gotten bigger,” an officer from the special cell of Delhi Police said.
Explaining how dreaded Sata’s crimes are in his hometown, a Delhi Police officer shared an anecdote from 2018, when he had arrested Sata and accompanied him to different states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Delhi to recover the man’s loot. Police had found 51 stolen cars, a record seizure by Delhi Police that year.
“We were taking him (Sata) to Moradabad to recover a car. I remember I got a call from a friend in Uttar Pradesh Police. He was furious that we (Delhi Police) had arrested Sata. They had informally issued a shoot-at-sight order on him. He was to be killed in a police encounter,” the officer said. “Maybe this is why he left India in 2018-19.”
Sharik was once a petty burglar who worked variously as a bus conductor in Delhi’s infamous blue line buses, a truck driver, and even a security guard. The 49-year-old man, now living in Dubai, has emerged as the kingpin of north India’s biggest vehicle theft operation. The name of Sharik alias Sata, son of a former Mumbai university professor, has come up thrice in the past six months, and twice in the past 20 days, during the interrogation of car thieves. They described Sata as their boss who allegedly takes “orders of vehicles needed“ from places as far as Manipur and Assam and gets his accomplices to steal them in Delhi and its adjoining states.On November 9, police arrested a man named Akbar Ali for stealing vehicles and selling them to buyers in West Bengal, Assam and Manipur. Ali told police he works for Sata and has sent at least 200 stolen vehicles from the national capital region (NCR) to those states in the past one year. The following week, when another police unit arrested a man in Manipur and recovered 14 Toyota Fortuner and Hyundai Creta cars, also stolen from NCR, the man said he worked for Sata. It wasn’t always like this. Until four years ago, Sata was one among many car thieves in the national capital. He was last arrested in 2018, and served time for three months before being released on bail. He then he went off the radar, said a crime branch officer, an expert on vehicle theft gangs.For a man missing for almost two years since he jumped bail following his arrest in November 2018, police heard Sata’s name in August when two men were arrested with counterfeit notes worth ₹4 lakh. The men were arrested from Sarai Kale Khan and said they were working for Sharik Sata, who worked from Dubai and was aided by Pakistani agencies.Sharik worked for the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, and was tasked to circulate fake currency in India, Delhi Police had said in a statement on August 21, 2021.In the backdrop of these three cases since August that linked Sata’s name with fake currency and vehicle theft, police was not amused, given Sata’s abilities and his history of working at different places. “He has an interesting crime career and did all sorts of things before becoming a top vehicle thief in Delhi,” a Delhi police officer said while reading out Sata’s confessional statement when he was arrested in 2013 for stealing a car from west Delhi. Sata told police in his statement that he was son of a retired professor who taught Islamic studies in the University of Mumbai. “They are from a small place called Geeta Sarai, Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh. For some reason, Sata could not study and fell into bad company,” said the police officer, who had questioned him in the past. Sata told police that after dropping out of school in class 8, he started working as a labourer in Sambhal and then as a helper for a truck driver. It was at that time that he had come in touch with a man named Mohammed Noor from his village and started burgling homes. Records show he was first arrested for a theft inside a house in Moradabad in 1996.His statement, a copy of which was seen by HT, showed that he had come to Delhi in 1996 and worked as a truck driver at Randhawa Transport Company in Azadpur. After a year, he started working as bus conductor for blueline bus route number 19 between Jahangirpuri and Regal cinema. “During 1997 and 2000, he also worked as a field security officer for a security company in Greater Kailash. He wanted to increase his knowledge of topography of Delhi and these jobs were perfect alibi for him to roam in these areas of Delhi. While working as a field officer, he had come in touch with some vehicle thieves, with whom he got together and started stealing the vehicles at night. He initially worked for different gangs, but later formed his own gang,” reads the police’s report based on Sata’s confession in 2013.The police report quotes Sata as someone who recruited many people from Meerut and Sambhal to steal cars. Sata has allegedly divided the gang members in different groups. “They specialise in stealing SUVs, mostly cars such as Toyota Fortuner and Creta. He has divided the gangs in different states. In Manipur, when we arrested a man last month, we found out that he was a top car dealer there, who sold the stolen vehicles. We had recovered at least 10 Fortuner vehicles. He sells the stolen cars for as low as ₹10-12 lakh. He must be making crores of rupees,” said an officer, who arrested the Manipur resident last month. All the police officers declined to be named. Sata in his confession told police that said his real name was Sharik, but nobody called him by that name. In north India’s world of vehicle thieves, for the past one decade, he is known only as Sata. He also said there was a reason why he was called by that name. His friends started calling him Sata (60 in Hindi) because he could drive stolen vehicles at over 60km per hour even in the shortest of stretches.While different Delhi Police teams are at work to identify the gangs in north Delhi who work for Sata, the man has number of gangs working in Uttar Pradesh as well. He carries a reward of ₹50,000 by Uttar Pradesh Police for his arrest in the cases registered in that state. A crime dossier on Sata maintained by Delhi Police showed he has in the past been booked by Uttar Prades Police under laws such as the Gangster Act, Goonda Act and the National Security Act (NSA) of 1980, along with at least 45 othercriminal cases. “He is a smooth talker despite being a class 8 dropout. We won’t be surprised if the Pakistan agencies got in touch with him and are using his criminal network to fund their illegal activities here. Despite being booked under the NSA and the gangster Act, he has always jumped bail and gotten bigger,” an officer from the special cell of Delhi Police said.Explaining how dreaded Sata’s crimes are in his hometown, a Delhi Police officer shared an anecdote from 2018, when he had arrested Sata and accompanied him to different states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Delhi to recover the man’s loot. Police had found 51 stolen cars, a record seizure by Delhi Police that year. “We were taking him (Sata) to Moradabad to recover a car. I remember I got a call from a friend in Uttar Pradesh Police. He was furious that we (Delhi Police) had arrested Sata. They had informally issued a shoot-at-sight order on him. He was to be killed in a police encounter,” the officer said. “Maybe this is why he left India in 2018-19.”