Food delivery executives turn chain snatchers for gym membership

Two of the three men arrested for chain snatching were food delivery executives who were participating in the plan of the third arrested man who wanted to pay for a gym membership, according to Namrata Patil, deputy commissioner of police, Zone-5 of Pune police

Two of the three men arrested for chain snatching were food delivery executives who were participating in the plan of the third arrested man who wanted to pay for a gym membership, according to Namrata Patil, deputy commissioner of police, Zone-5 of Pune police.

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The three men were identified as Akash Sindhaling Jadhav (23) who is a Zomato delivery executive; Vijay JagannathPosa (22) who is a Swiggy delivery executive, and Sahil Anil Gaikwad (22) who works as housekeeper at Activate Gym in Solapur, according to the police.

“They are all from Solapur and knew each other from there. The first two had been working in Pune for more than a year. Posa had shifted from Zomato to Swiggy a few months ago. They do not have a previous record in Pune or Solapur. It was Sahil Gaikwad who wanted to pay for a gym membership and had recently been taught by a chain snatcher in Solapur the trick to do it,” said DCP Patil.

The police were investigating a case of chain-snatching from a 60-year-old woman in a society located along Sane Guruji Marg in Uruli Devachi. On June 16 around 1:10pm, the woman was walking from one daughter’s house to the other, located a few hundred meters from each other, along with her granddaughter when one of the three snatched her chain and ran to the gate where the two others were waiting ready on the bike.

“DCP madam asked us to check with the delivery sites about who was delivering in that area around that time. We found the bike and set a trap around it. After a few hours, one of them arrived there on an Activa to retrieve the bike and we caught them,” said senior police inspector Digambar Shinde of Hadapsar police station.

The men fled on the bike and managed to snatch 18gm of the 20gm gold chain that the woman was wearing, according to the police.

“They were emboldened by this success and on June 19, they were waiting to get an order from an area with heavy delivery load. They got a delivery address in Chandan nagar and tried to do the same but got some 3-4gm from the chain and rest remained in the victim’s hand,” said DCP Patil.

The men were arrested in Monday and remanded to police custody during which the two cases were brought to light.