Taking a teenaged groundnut seller into confidence paid rich dividends for the government railway police on Saturday. After being
tipped-off by the poor vendor, the railway cops nabbed an interstate gang that was allegedly engaged in targeting spectators at cricket venues to steal their mobile phones. The nabbed gang, comprising six persons, had stolen at least 10 mobile phones from the Jamtha cricket stadium during the recently-held India-Sri Lanka one-day international match on Friday.
Having nabbed them from platform No. 4, the gang is learnt to have stolen 13 mobile phones in the last 24 hours, including three from passengers standing in the queue outside the booking counter. Police said that the Gujarat-based gang had boarded the Ahmedabad-Howrah express on December 16 to reach the city on the following day. The gang went to see the match where a sizeable crowd had assembled for the tantalizing contest. The victims whose mobile phones were stolen included a reporter from the electronic media, realtors and relatives of cops.
Vishal Thakkar (21), Sanjay Waghela (22), Pravin Patel (23), Rahul Panchal (21), Ghanshyam Bhavsar (30) and Vishal Chouhan (19) were trapped a few hours before boarding the return train. Police said the gang, who had checked out of a lodge a night before, made the cardinal mistake of trying to share the mobiles among themselves.
Sub-inspector Arvind Saraf, who has already detected 13 offences by arresting 14 accused in the recent past, claimed to have swung into action after some passengers approached the GRP, Nagpur, with the complaint of their mobile phones going missing from the booking counter premises. "We had recently taken a meeting of vendors, boot polish boys, canteen and stall owners seeking their support in nabbing miscreants and other doubtful characters from the railway premises," said Saraf whose arrest tally went up to 20 with the recent arrests. "Fortunately, it was a cell phone of the media person which rang. It was he who was calling to check whether his mobile was still on. I replied and realised that the persons in possession of it were not the actual owners of the property as they were claiming," said Saraf adding that Waghel worked as a diamond-cutter and Thakkar was a waiter. "The gang members were so desperate that one of them (Panchal) agreed to be a part of the gang despite sustaining serious injuries in a road accident recently," said Saraf adding that the gang returned after a stealing spree at the stadium and then headed to a liquor bar. "They checked out of the lodge where they were putting up for the night and headed to the railway station where they stole three more mobile phones," said Saraf adding that the investigation was supervised by Ravindra Singhal, SP, Nagpur GRP, S Nikam, DySP, senior inspector L Ninawe and squad comprising head constable L Gujjar and D Deware, S Dupare and others.