Taking advantage of the quiet Sunday afternoon, Nanu Nagardas (27), a footpath-dweller from Fort, actually managed to make a small hole in one of the walls of the barracks where the narcotics were stored along with other seized properties.

``The hole in the wall was big enough for a man to wriggle in and come out with enough narcotics to lead a luxurious life ever after,'' said PSI Gautam Kamble of Colaba police station who, along with constable Sanjay Pawar, caught Nanu in the act. He added Nanu was a known `charsi' (drug addict) and had been earlier been convicted because of this.

``At around 2 pm, we received a call from an alert citizen about the suspicious manner in which this man was breaking the barrack wall, which is just next to thepavement. Fortunately, Nanu was still at it when we arrived at Sessions Court, and we immediately arrested him,'' informed PSI Kamble. However, apart from the fact that a Court was broken into, what has foxed police is how Nanu managed to get information about storage of the drugs.

``The thief had made a hole of 1 feet by 1.5 feet in the wall of the room where drugs were kept. This is very surprising, because even local police didn't know about this store room till now!'' remarked PSI Kamble, adding that such confidential information is only known to the concerned government department.

An advocate's clerk from the same court, B S Nanavati, who registered a panchnama for the crime, said:``This room in the barracks originally had a window, but it was cemented with bricks after it was decided to store narcotics here." He said the thief may have got a tip-off about the drugs while serving an earlier sentence in jail.