‘Super thief’ Bunty back in business, arrested yet again

Police said that during the chase, and even for the first few hours after his arrest, they did not realise who they had nabbed.

Two thefts in Greater Kailash 2 and a hot car chase later, “Bunty Chor”, one of Delhi’s most notorious burglars, who inspired the 2008 Hindi film Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, was back in familiar territory — behind bars, weeks after walking out from another prison.

Devender Singh alias “Bunty Chor” in custody on Friday. (ANI)

Devender Singh, better known as “Bunty Chor”, added to his 500 previous burglaries on Thursday night, when he broke into two properties — a house and a guest house — in the upscale south Delhi neighbourhood where he stole a car, cellphones, a bunch of other electronic goods and other valuables.

But, probably rusty after a 10-year prison sentence in a Kerala jail, Singh made an amateur’s mistake. He left one of the stolen cellphones on.

Within 24 hours, the Delhi Police tracked him to Kanpur, after a spirited chase via Kalindi Kunj and Agra.

By the end of the chase, which involved us trailing Singh at a 10-metre gap for almost 100km, we recovered every single stolen item, including the car in which all the goods were stuffed,” said Chandan Choudhary, deputy commissioner of police (south).

However, during the chase, and even for the first few hours after his arrest, the police did not realise who they had nabbed. But on Friday morning, as they went through Singh’s dossier, it dawned on them.

They had gotten hold of a man who has been involved in at least 500 burglaries across the country (half of them in his hometown, Delhi), who had been arrested over a dozen times, escaped custody six times and been convicted thrice — enough to inspire a Bollywood film.

Before his latest burglaries, Singh was behind bars for a decade, having been arrested in 2013 for breaking into a businessman’s house in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, deactivating the security and surveillance system, and making off with several gadgets and a Mitsubishi Outlander SUV. He was convicted for that crime in 2017 and handed a 10-year sentence by a judge who labelled him a “habitual offender”. He was released on March 3 this year, having already served four years behind bars when he was convicted.

But the impatient Singh waited just over 40 days to ricochet back to his pre-prison life.

Earlier on Friday morning, he broke into a house in GK-2 M Block and picked up all he could find — cellphones, a purse, laptops, luxury shoes and a watch, said the police, adding that the residents were home at the time of the burglary.

It turned out he had also checked a bowl near the door, found the keys to a Maruti Baleno, loaded the stolen items into the vehicle, and drove away,” said Choudhary.

Footage from a CCTV camera installed inside the house also showed him carrying a knife-like object and using the torch of a stolen Apple iPhone to look around. A little later, the same suspect allegedly struck a bank’s guest house in E Block, just around 500m away. The footage showed that a middle-aged man, wearing a cap, was involved in both crimes, said the police.

Police said they checked the FastTag check-ins of the stolen car and number plate-recognition cameras in Delhi to confirm he was driving away to Uttar Pradesh.

“One of the three stolen phones was turned on, which allowed us to track his location. We then put a police team on his trail,” said the DCP.

The officer said that since the suspect was caught on camera carrying a knife, and driving at 120km/hour, the police didn’t intercept him for almost 100km, even though they were tailing him.

“A traffic jam at a toll plaza in Kanpur on Thursday night allowed us to intercept his car,” said the officer.

But Singh wasn’t one to give in quite so easily.

When confronted, he produced a fake identity card and pretended to be a policeman, said investigators. However, a policeman used the end of a pistol to break open the car window and overpower him.

Even then, Singh allegedly tried to talk his way out of the situation by first being witty, then making up stories and finally getting into an argument with the police. But the local police helped arrest him and send him back to Delhi, at the spot.

Speaking to journalists at the Delhi Police Headquarters on Friday, Singh was incoherent in his response. He claimed he had been “hijacked from his bedroom by the police” and that he was provided “security by Cameroon”, all the while peppering in words like “embassy”, “Interpol” and “Saddam Hussein”.

DCP Choudhary said Singh has been behaving this way ever since his arrest.

“He is pretending to be mentally ill to avoid being confronted with the facts,” she said, adding that Singh was being medically examined.