Snatchers flew to capital for crime, drove flashy cars

Two men who made a small fortune snatching from people in west and outer Delhi have been arrested.

They both owned expensive cars and one of them would travel to Delhi from his home in Karnal by a Honda City each time they planned to snatch.
His partner would fly to Delhi from Bihar almost every month for executing their plans, said police on Friday.

With their arrests, 18 cases of snatching and one of auto lifting have been solved. However, police suspect their involvement in over 90 criminal cases.The accused also had in place some strategies to help them commit the crime and stay unidentified.

First, they had 220 cc Pulsar motorcycles which left few vehicles fast enough to chase them. They had the motorcycles painted red in the front and black in the rear to confuse victims about the colour of the motorcycles when questioned by police.

The motorcycles were also fitted with high pressure horns to drown the victim’s calls for help. That also helped draw the public’s immediate attention to the motorcycle instead of the victims.

The two Pulsar motorcycles, one of which was found to be stolen, have been seized by police apart from Rs 55,000 in cash.

“On arriving in the city, they would park their car in a parking lot and get onto a motorcycle to snatch from the targets that generally consisted of women,” said police.
One of the accused Mukesh is a native of Bihar’s Munger district and he would fly into the city only to snatch, alleged police. His accomplice Manish was recently bailed out in an earlier case.

“They spent a good sum of money made from snatching on food, clothes and entertainment,” said police.

They were both nabbed on Thursday outside a parking lot in west Delhi’s Paschim Vihar where they had arrived to meet a friend.

Police had received a tip-off and when they arrived, a team caught them and asked them to provide documents for the motorcycle they were riding, but they tried to mislead the team, police said.