Delhi duo who robbed two cabbies in two hours to buy drugs arrested
The accused had first managed to rob mobile phone of a cab driver who was changing the deflated tyre, they then booked a cab from that mobile phone. Once the second cab driver started the ride, the accused then robbed him of his phone, car and other valuables.
On April 6, around 10pm, Kuldeep, 35, and Devender, 24, were out on Najafgarh Road, looking for a target so that they could rob him and buy drugs and alcohol. Soon, they spotted Nasiruddin, who was changing the deflated tyre of his Maruti Ritz cab. They approached him, offering help but instead robbed the cabbie of his mobile phone and wallet.
Nasiruddin reached the Chhawla police station and registered a complaint.
But, they were not done for the night, said Anto Alphonse, deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka).
At 11.30pm, the robbers used Nasiruddin’s phone to book a cab for Paprawat village in southwest Delhi’s Najafgarh. After riding the cab for a while, they asked the driver, Ravi, to take them to Gurugram first. When they were on their way to their destination from Gurugram, one of them asked Ravi for his phone to make a call, Alphonse said.
In possession of Ravi’s phone, the robbers forced him to stop the car.
They thrashed Ravi, robbed him of his mobile phone, ATM card and Rs 1,700 cash. They left him at the spot and fled in his car.
With the help of the global positioning system device fitted in his car, Ravi and his friends traced the vehicle to an isolated place in Munirka Kunj near Najafgarh, where the robbers had left it.
Having got his car back, Ravi also filed a complaint with the same police station in Chhawla. Investigators found that the same robbers were involved in another robbery an hour before they targeted Ravi.
“We analysed the footage of the CCTV cameras on the routes that the suspects took after the two robberies. The crimes and the suspects were captured in a few cameras. We circulated the video footage and pictures of the suspects to all beat police staff of Dwarka police district on a WhatsApp group. One of the beat staff identified the suspects roaming around in Paprawat on Monday and helped us arrest them,” said DCP Alphonse.
The police recovered three stolen mobile phones and a leather purse, belonging to the two cabbies, from them.
During interrogation, the duo told the police that the same night they robbed Ravi, they had also targeted Nasiruddin. They also told the police how they used Nasiruddin’s phone to rob Ravi, police said. Their records show that the men were previously involved in two cases each of theft and burglary, police said.