Delhi: Mobile snatchers who dragged woman in Dilshad Garden arrested

Before targeting the woman, the alleged snatchers committed two more crimes the same morning near Bhopura border and Gagan Cinema, both under the territorial jurisdiction of Nand Nagri police station in northeast police district.

A week after a 22-year-old woman suffered injuries to her knees and hand as she fell from a moving cycle rickshaw while trying to fight off two bike-borne men who allegedly snatched her phone in Dilshad Garden, the Shahdara district police on Sunday claimed to have solved the case by arresting the two men and the brother of one of them who bought stolen phones.

All three phones stolen on that morning by the duo, Rizwan and Mehraj, were recovered from the alleged receiver of stolen property. (Representative photo/Shutterstock)

Before targeting the woman around 7.30am, the alleged snatchers committed two more crimes the same morning near Bhopura border and Gagan Cinema, both under the territorial jurisdiction of Nand Nagri police station in northeast police district. All three phones stolen on that morning by the duo, Rizwan and Mehraj, were recovered from the alleged receiver of stolen property, identified as Salman.

A brother of Rizwan, Salman had further sold the phones to two men – Aman and Shahrukh. Aman and Shahrukh have also been bound down in the case for purchasing phones without asking for their original sale documents, said deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara) R Sathiyasundaram.

On November 1, the woman, Lovely Gupta, left her Dilshad Garden home and boarded a cycle rickshaw to head to Jhilmil Metro station, from where she was supposed to board a Metro train to reach her office in Noida. She was near Sai Chowk in Dilshad Garden, nearly half a kilometre away from home -- when the snatchers targeted her around 7.30am.

In her complaint to the station house officer (SHO), Gupta said the two men came on a bike from behind and started riding next to the rickshaw. “Suddenly, the pillion rider tried to snatch my phone. I was shocked by the sudden attack and tried to defend myself. But he pulled me by force, snatched my phone and sped away. Meanwhile, I fell on the road and yelled for help, but no one came to my aid,” said Gupta in her complaint filed on Monday, a day after the incident.

DCP Sathiyasundaram said that a case was registered and several teams were tasked to identify and nab the suspects. The teams scanned nearly 30 CCTV cameras around the crime scene and it helped them get the registration number of the bike the suspects had used. The ownership of the bike was established and through technical investigation and information received through the human intelligence network, the suspects were arrested on Saturday.

“Their interrogation led to the recovery of the bike. The two disclosed that they had snatched three phones on that morning and all were given to Rizwan’s brother, Salman. We arrested Salman and recovered one phone from him. He had sold the other two cellphones to Aman and Shahrukh. We caught them and recovered the two phones,” added the DCP.