Technology comes to aid of cops in nabbing notorious snatcher
New Delhi: Technology, when used effectively, does wonders, and a team of South Delhi Police proved this true beyond doubt as they used the newly-introduced live location sharing option in popular instant messaging application WhatsApp to arrest a gang involved in robberies in five different areas of South Delhi.
Cops on Tuesday said that the arrested accused Vineet Verma, a resident of Loni in Ghaziabad, is the member of a gang that targets men wearing gold chains on morning walks.
Police noticed a sharp increase in snatching cases in March, where the victims mostly wore heavy chains.
"We realised that the snathers specifically targetted areas under five police stations, namely Malviya Nagar, Saket, Neb Sarai, Mehrauli and Fatehpur Beri. Contrary to the usual modus operandi, where snatchers strike along the main roads which facilitates quick exit, in these cases, the place of occurrences were deep inside residential colonies," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Romil Baaniya.
Soon, a trap team of 146 policemen constituted from of the above five police stations and briefed the DCP office about the detailed descriptions of the suspects and the white TVS Apache motorcycle they used in the commission of crime.
"A common team communication network for quick sharing of information was provided, using wireless network and WhatsApp groups for sharing live location" said Baaniya.
On July 11, a police team spotted the snatchers at Chhatarpur Y-point, and started chasing them while having the live location sharing feature of WhatsApp turned on. This enabled the rest of the trap team to gather at the right spot to nab the criminals.
Minutes later, the two snatchers found themselves surrounded. With no way out, they started firing at the cops and one of them even snatched a motorist's bike on gunpoint to flee. However, cops overpowered Verma and based on his inputs, seven snatched gold chains have been recovered from his possession. Cops said that the other absconding snatcher Amit is carrying a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh.
