Two snatchers held after dramatic chase in north Delhi

Four phones were stolen from Mukherjee Nagar just minutes before the snatching in Timarpur, as was the bike the suspects were riding.

The Delhi Police on Tuesday said they have arrested two men responsible for a spree of snatching incidents in north, northeast and northwest Delhi, and have recovered five stolen mobile phones and a stolen motorcycle from the accused.

The suspects were arrested and booked for robbery, dishonestly receiving or retaining stolen property, and common intention. (Representational image)

The two, identified as Monu Kumar alias Kamal, 23, and Arun Kumar, 22, were nabbed on Sunday morning after they snatched the phone of a 32-year-old woman at Timarpur in north Delhi, police officers aware of the case said.

Giving details of the incident, police said that the victim, Komal Chauhan, was travelling in an e-rickshaw towards the Vishwavidyalaya Metro station on Sunday at around 9am and was talking on her phone when two men on a bike drove very close to the electric vehicle and snatched her phone.

Chauhan’s phone was pulled with such force that she too was pulled out of the vehicle, and the woman fell on the road, officers said.

Komal Chauhan, was travelling in an e-rickshaw towards the Vishwavidyalaya Metro station on Sunday was talking on her phone when two men on a bike drove very close to the electric vehicle and snatched her phone.

“My wife fell off the moving e-rickshaw due to the sudden jerk caused by the snatcher’s force in grabbing the phone. She did not receive any serious injury. The snatchers got hold of her phone and sped away towards Mall Road. My wife raised an alarm, attracting the attention of two policemen passing by on a bike,” Chauhan’s husband Ashu said.

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Then, officers said, the two policemen began chasing the suspects for nearly a kilometre, and the snatchers were forced to drive back towards the road where the crime took place. There, the officers said, a cab driver saw the chase, and used his Maruti Swift Dzire car to block the path of the suspects. The two were unable to break on time, hit the cab, and were immediately overpowered by the policemen, the officers said.

“The two criminals were arrested with the help of a good Samaritan — the taxi driver who played a key role in stopping them from fleeing,” said deputy commissioner of police (north) Manoj Kumar Meena.

The two policemen then searched the suspects, and apart from Chauhan’s phone, recovered four more stolen cellphones. They were subsequently arrested and booked for robbery, dishonestly receiving or retaining stolen property, and common intention.

Police said the four other phones were found stolen from Mukherjee Nagar area in northwest Delhi just minutes before the snatching in Timarpur, as was the bike the suspects were riding.

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“Chauhan’s stolen cellphone was recovered from the pocket of the pillion rider, identified as Monu alias Kamal. Both were residents of Bjahanpura in northeast Delhi. The bike they were riding was found stolen from Jyoti Nagar area in northeast Delhi on December 19. The four phones were stolen from different areas in Mukherjee Nagar,” another police officer said, declining to be named.

After Monu and Arun were nabbed, police registered five separate first information reports for each of the snatching cases — four at the Mukherjee Nagar police station, and the fifth involving Chauhan at the Timarpur police station.

Incidentally, the spot where Chauhan’s phone was snatched is only around 2km from the Khyber Pass traffic signal, where Kesang Dorjee, a 66-year-old woman from Arunachal Pradesh, fell while resisting a snatching attempt by a biker on December 17. She succumbed to her injuries four days later.

Her son, Pasang, 45, told police that the bag contained ₹1 lakh, her phone, and ID cards. The family was in Delhi for Pasang’s liver treatment.

The police are yet to crack the case and nab the snatcher.