Delhi: 2 held days after woman severely injured during snatching bid

The two men were arrested following a nearly five-kilometre chase on the Delhi-Meerut expressway on Friday.

Five days after a 40-year-old woman suffered serious head injuries and ended up in a coma after she fell out of a moving e-rickshaw while resisting a snatching bid near a banquet hall in east Delhi’s Surajmal Vihar area, the Shahdara district police claimed to have arrested the two suspects behind the crime following a five-kilometre chase on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway on Friday.

Police said one of the arrested men, Manish alias Rishi (41), has been involved in 106 snatching cases in the last 14 years. (Picture for representation only)

Police said one of the arrested men, Manish alias Rishi (41), has been involved in 106 snatching cases in the last 14 years. He was also involved in a case of attempt to murder and attack on the members of the special cell in 2016, for which he carried a reward of ₹50,000 on his arrest. The second suspect, identified as Mohit Gupta (34), previously owned two restaurants but suffered losses due to Covid-19 pandemic, said police. They mostly targeted women or elderly people walking or travelling in three-wheelers outside shopping malls in east Delhi and Ghaziabad areas, said deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara) R Sathiyasundaram.

The two were identified after eight teams of the district’s special staff scanned footage from over 500 CCTV cameras, along a 70km route they travelled between east Delhi and Ghaziabad over the four days.

Around 1pm on February 7, the snatching victim, Ritu, was headed to Gurmeet banquet hall with her sister-in-law and niece for a neighbour’s wedding on an e-rickshaw when the two men allegedly tried to snatch her bag. While resisting the snatching bid, Ritu fell out of the vehicle. She suffered head injuries and later, doctors said she has slipped into coma. Police said her condition is still critical

After the snatching in east Delhi, the two suspects made two more snatching attempts outside Mahagun and Pacific shopping malls in Vaishali and Kaushambi areas on the same afternoon but failed.

A black and red Pulsar bike used in the snatching was recovered along with the woman’s bag containing her Aadhar card that they had thrown in Vaishali area near the expressway. A country-made pistol, with two cartridges, was also recovered from the two, who were arrested while they were out to target another victim.

The teams scanned nearly 500 CCTV cameras and found that the suspects had moved towards east Delhi and further to Vaishali on Delhi-Meerut Expressway. Investigators also found that the suspects were carefully using roundabouts and U-turns to evade police surveillance.

“The efforts of our teams helped us identify the suspects and reach a conclusion that they regularly took Delhi-Meerut Expressway to travel to different areas. Apart from deploying teams at six major shopping malls in east Delhi as well as Ghaziabad and Noida, we also positioned our teams at strategic locations on the expressway,” added DCP Sathiyasundaram.

Dramatic chase

On Friday, a police team posted on the expressway spotted the suspects near Pandav Nagar and began chasing their bike towards Sarai Kale Khan. The team alerted members of the second team positioned at the end of the expressway near Sarai Kale Khan, where they placed barricades to slow down the traffic.

However, the suspects crossed onto the other carriageway and started driving against the traffic, towards the Yamuna bridge. While a third police team present at the end of the bridge signalled the suspects to stop, they returned to the original carriageway in a bid to escape.

An inspector of the special staff chasing them in a car slowly cornered them against the road divider and opened his door, leading to a minor collision in which the two suspects fell from the bike.

“They were quickly overpowered by the police,” said an officer.