Delhi: Woman falls out of moving e-rickshaw during snatching, now in coma

The officers said the snatchers fled with the woman’s purse, containing her identification documents and some cash

A 40-year-old woman is battling for life after suffering serious head injuries when she fell out of a moving e-rickshaw while resisting two snatchers on a motorbike who were trying to grab her handbag near a banquet hall in east Delhi’s Surajmal Vihar on Monday afternoon, police said.

A case of attempt to commit culpable homicide, voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery, and common intention, was registered under Indian Penal Code’s sections 308, 394 and 34 at the Anand Vihar police station against the unidentified snatchers. (Picture for representation only)

The woman suffered a brain haemorrhage and has slipped into coma. She has been put on a ventilator support, and her condition is critical, police officers said quoting doctors treating her at a private hospital in Patparganj.

The officers said the snatchers fled with the woman’s purse, containing her identification documents and some cash. At the time of the crime, the woman, identified as Ritu (single name), was headed to Gurmeet banquet hall with her sister-in-law, Priya Trehan, and niece, Nandani, to attend their neighbour’s wedding.

The incident, the latest in a series of snatching incidents in which the victims suffered fatal or serious injuries besides losing their property, took place at 1.15pm --- a few metres away from the Cross River shopping mall.

A case of attempt to commit culpable homicide, voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery, and common intention, was registered under Indian Penal Code’s sections 308, 394 and 34 at the Anand Vihar police station against the unidentified snatchers. At least seven teams of special staff, anti-auto theft squad and three police stations of Shahdara district were formed to solve the case.

“We have nabbed a few suspects, and are interrogating them. Our preliminary investigation has revealed that the suspects in the case are part of a gang of about nine members. Also, the red-and-black Pulsar motorcycle used in the crime was apparently used in three more snatching cases reported between January 14 and 19 in Anand Vihar and Seemapuri areas. We are trying to arrest the two suspects along with other members of the gang,” said deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara) R Sathiyasundaram.

The first information report (FIR) was registered on the complaint of Trehan. She said that Ritu lives with her husband, Sunil Kumar, on the third floor of a building in Shankar Nagar Extension near Krishna Nagar. She said lives on the second floor of the same building. Kumar works as a salesman in a saree shop in Lal Quarter market in Krishna Nagar.

On Monday. around 12.30pm, Trehan said, she left home in an e-rickshaw with Ritu and Nandani to attend a wedding function of their neighbour at Gurmeet Banquet Hall in Aditya mall, near the Cross River mall.

“Ritu and I were seated on the rear seat while my daughter was on the opposite seat. We were near the banquet hall, when two men on a bike came close to our vehicle. The pillion rider tried to snatch Ritu’s bag but she held on to it. At this, the man snatched her bag with a jerk, throwing Ritu out of the moving rickshaw. The bikers fled with her bag,” said Trehan.

Trehan said Ritu was bleeding from her head and was unconscious. She said Ritu was rushed to the nearby Hedgewar Hospital with the help of some passersby. She then called Ritu’s husband and the police.

In a series on crime in Delhi in March last year, HT reported that unemployed, illiterate, school drop-outs, arrested for the first time are common threads that connect almost every person arrested for snatching in Delhi since 2018, highlighting how one of the most serious concerns on the streets of the national capital is also its biggest gateway crime.

Analysis of police data shows that of the snatchers arrested in 2020, almost 43.71% (2,840) were illiterate or school drop-outs (did not clear Class 5). In fact, only 10 of the arrested had graduate degrees. The data also showed that a cell phone was the most common item snatched — in at least 71% (5,655) of the cases, followed by gold jewellery (15% cases).

“Our police generally work on preventive strategies such as increasing pickets and checking bikers in areas that are prone to snatching. However, the best way to deal with this menace is catching not just one snatcher, but neutralising his entire gang including those who buy stolen items from them. The existing law may be amended to impose harsher punishment to create a deterrence,” said retired assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Rejender Singh, who was instrumental in neutralizing several notorious snatchers and robbers, including infamous bikers gang leader, Om Prakash alias Bunty, who spread terror in Delhi by shooting and robbing people in late 2000.

Talking about the rise in violence, Rajat Mitra, a criminal psychologist who has worked with Delhi Police and also with forces in some European countries, said, “Violence had been a component of many crimes earlier, and now it has increased so much that we can say that any crime can turn violent. That has happened because of the change in the demography and profile of people. The engagement between victims and criminals, which we call victimology, has changed drastically in the last 20 years. First of all, there is greater engagement between both of them. People, including women, now resist and fight much more than they used to do before. Twenty-thirty years back it was a more passive thing and people would give in. But now people are more alert and they resist much more. On the other hand criminals are also more desperate. So the engagement between them is higher and that leads to violence and tragic results. The sense of women empowerment was not there 20-30 years ago. Women now fight back and are not passive any more. That is one major reason but then that is also risky.”