Snatchers steal man's phone, return to steal wife's earring before fleeing

New delhi: In a shockingly brazen incident, a couple of snatchers first snatched the mobile phone of a man while he was travelling to the New Delhi Railway Station and then snatched his wife's gold earring while they were on their way back from the station before fleeing, officials here said. The incident was reported on Vikas Marg.

56-year-old Santok Singh lives in Shahdara's Kasturba Nagar and was on his way to the railway station to catch a train to Indore with his wife Kulwant and son in an autorickshaw. On their way there, the snatchers first snatched Santok's phone, which had their PNR numbers.

"At around 9 pm on November 17, when we reached Vikash Marg, two people on a black motorcycle came and snatched my mobile phone and fled towards ITO," Santok told police.

As they were returning back from the railway station and when they reached Vikas Marg they spotted the same black motorcycle and the snatchers who had stolen his phone. "I started shouting and alerting people but one of the accused then snatched my wife's gold earring," the complainant said.

Balwinder, Santok's son, started chasing the accused on his autorickshaw and hit their bike due to which both of them fell. "They left their motorcycle and fled the spot," the complainant said. Balwinder told Millennium Post that his family was going to Indore to meet a doctor for his father's treatment. "They took away the phone, earing. Nothing has been recovered so far," he said.

Vikas Marg has for a long time now been a regular haunt for snatchers. In fact, many of the victims have said snatchers had attacked them mere metres away from the Delhi Police headquarters on Vikas Marg.

Clueless cops, blind spots galore

Significantly, despite the COVID-19 induced lockdown shutting down the Capital for a good part of this year, 2020 has recorded more snatching cases till September 15 than 2019 in the same period.

According to Delhi Police data, 5,131 cases of snatching have been reported from various parts of the city in 2020. Last year, as many as 4,514 cases were reported during the same period.

Even though CCTV cameras are installed for public safety and detection of crimes, recent data showed that over 1,100 CCTV cameras installed in the city were found defunct.

In a meeting between the top brass of Delhi Police, it was revealed that there were over 3,500 blind spots in the city that needed CCTV camera coverage.

According to investigators, from time-to-time, snatchers keep changing their modus operandi. Sometimes they use high-end motorcycles to make a quick getaway and some use cheap scooties to not be suspected at all and easily merge into traffic.

Some have also started carrying firearms with multiple incidents in the last few months where snatchers have shot dead their victim while attacking them.

Police said that they have taken several steps to curb snatching in the National Capital. "We are doing mapping of crime-prone areas, intensive two-wheeler checkings are going on in the city. We are conducting verification of old jail bail release criminals, bad characters," police have said.