The Koparkhairane police have arrested a 25-year-old man for the theft of a ‘Yatharth’ device from the police station while he was in custody. The accused, Faisal Khan, was arrested on May 17 by a beat marshal for creating a ruckus but was released with a warning. The next day, on May 18, the cops found one of their five ‘Yathrath’ devices missing.
Yatharth is a digital evidence recorder for videos and photographs of the accused and the spot where the crime occurred. The device also helps in recording the finger prints, which are tamper-proof and admissible in the court of law as evidence.
A police official said, “We cross checked the CCTV footage and found that Khan had stolen it while the staff was busy. Each device costs around Rs2 lakh and each police station is provided with five of them.” Senior police inspector Audumbar Patil said that the device looks like a mobile phone but can’t be accessed without a police ID and password. “It is almost impossible to tamper with the data already recorded on it,” he added.
In the CCTV footage, Khan is seen unzipping the bag kept on a cupboard, removing it and then securing it in his pocket. Khan, an unemployed drug addict, was traced to Kalamboli and nabbed on Wednesday. He told the cops that he thought it was a mobile phone.
