Police nabs burglars who planned thefts on Facebook messenger

The police began looking for them after a 35-year-old local resident approached the police last month, claiming that while she was at work, robbers broke into her house and stole her jewellery.

Mumbai: The police has arrested two people, for allegedly robbing locked houses across cities in the country after making elaborate plans on Facebook messenger. The police arrested one of the robbers from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, while the other was apprehended from his home town Delhi.

Dhananjay Ligade, senior police inspector of Malad police station, said after they registered a case of a house break-in, a team of officers scanned through footage of more than 50 CCTVs across the area. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The police officials claimed that they have recovered purportedly stolen gold ornaments worth ₹2.5 lakh from the two men, identified as Shakib Shaukat Ali Ansari and Ahil Haruun Chowdhary.

The police began looking for them after a 35-year-old local resident approached the police last month, claiming that while she was at work, robbers broke into her house and stole her jewellery.

Dhananjay Ligade, senior police inspector of Malad police station, said after they registered a case of a house break-in, a team of officers scanned through footage of more than 50 CCTVs across the area.

In one of the recordings, police noticed Shaukat, who had been lodged at the Yerevada prison a few months back. They then obtained Shaukat’s residential address and other details and a team was then sent to Bijnor which arrested him while he was busy consuming alcohol near his village.

“We soon learnt about his Facebook friendship with Chowdhary,” said Ligade.

The police officers then asked Shaukat to post a message on Facebook to Chowdhary and ask him to meet him at the Delhi railway station.

The police said that Shaukat sent a post through Facebook messenger to Chowdhary asking him to meet at Delhi railway station to visit Mumbai, as he had received a tip-off about a vacant house that they could rob. As soon as Chowdhary reached the station, the team of Malad police nabbed him.

Ligade said the two became friends on Facebook a year ago. They then exchanged numbers and spoke a couple of times before deciding to commit robberies in different cities by visiting localities as tourists.

The two used to target houses that they found locked and had lesser surveillance by making frequent rounds to study the locality. They would rob valuables and leave to their respective native places the same day after splitting the booty.