Some might claim that they can even go to prison for their love, but a 20-year-old mobile thief landed in prison because of his love. Having stolen a cell phone from Mulund, the thief replaced the SIM card in the handset to chat with his girlfriend, and this action led to his arrest.
According to the Navghar police, the crime was committed last month when the victim, Parul Badguzar, was standing at a bus stop near the MHADA Colony in Mulund (east). Two men on a motorbike slowed down near her, snatched the cell phone in her hand and sped away. Parul immediately went to the Navghar police station, where an offence was registered against the unidentified accused.
“We scanned Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras in the area and one of them had captured the entire incident. We obtained stills of the footage where the faces of the accused were visible and started trying to identify them. At the same time, we were constantly tracking the location of the victim's phone,” senior police inspector Sunil Kamble, Navghar police station said.
On May 16, the police suddenly got a hit for the cell phone's location in Bhiwandi. The police already had the pictures of the accused from the CCTV footage and armed with these, a team was rushed to the location where the handset's location had been pinpointed. The team fanned out in the area and soon spotted one of the two suspects seen in the footage.
He was identified as Arbaaz Ansari (20) and the stolen handset was seized from him. Based on the results of his questioning, the police also traced and picked up the second accused, identified as Aswad Sheikh (19). Both were arrested and charged with theft under the Indian Penal Code.
“When we questioned Arbaaz following his arrest, he told us that he had inserted his own SIM card in the stolen handset so that he could chat with his girlfriend. As soon as he did so, we got a hit on the handset's IMEI number,” Kamble said.
He added that this was the duo's first offence and they are currently in judicial custody.
