Three Afghan nationals nabbed for Rs 4-cr theft at carpet store

Three Afghan nationals have been arrested for burglary at the warehouse of a Kashmir rugs showroom in south-east Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar last week.

Carpets worth Rs 4 crore were stolen from JI International, owned by 25-year-old Afghan national Mohammad Imran Wani.

The culprits have been identified as Atiqullah, 43, Shal Mohammad, 33, and Zabihullah, 29.

They have business of garments and artificial jewellery in Afghanistan.
Around 200 pieces of carpets were missing, but police have managed to recover only 39.
On interrogation, the three men told police that they went to the warehouse in the wee hours of April 8 and broke the locks with a gas cutter.

They took away carpets in a taxi and kept them at Hauz Rani.
Later, they went to Jaipur and Mumbai for customers, but could not succeed. Currently, they were planning to ship them to United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan.

In his statement, Imran had told police that the burglary took place after his brother Javed checked the warehouse late on April 7.

Around 5.30 am, Imran was informed by other showroom owners that the warehouse had been burgled.

During investigation, police were told that some Afghan nationals had come to the showroom couple of days before the incident on the pretext of selling carpets. It was claimed that their activities were suspicious.

“CCTV footage of the area was examined and we were able to identify the three men,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) Mandeep Singh Randhawa.

Several raids were conducted at suspected hideouts and lookout circular were also issued to alert airport officials.

Atiqullah, Shal and Zabihullah were then nabbed in south Delhi’s Hauz Rani on Friday. Stolen carpets were recovered from their possession and raids are being conducted to recover the remaining carpets.

“The three men know each other and came to India on tourist visa in March. They had planned to sell the stolen carpets in UAE and Afganistan,” Randhawa added.
They conducted a recce of Lajpat Nagar on the pretext of selling carpets.