For bikes & branded clothes, sons of cops took to crime
› The arrested youth said in the past few months, their expenses had gone up and they wanted to enjoy a certain lifestyle with expensive mobile phones and bikes. INVESTIGATING OFFICER
KARNAL: The charm of costly mobile phones, swanky bikes and branded clothes nudged the two arrested young wards of Haryana police personnel towards crime, police investigators said.
On Sunday, the Karnal police arrested a Class 12 student Shivam Mehra, 19, and a college dropout Rahul Kumar, 20, on charges of their alleged involvement in about nine cases of snatching and theft of a motorcycle and cell phones. The arrest of these youth, who are avid boxing players, has sent shock waves in police circles as father of one of the accused is an inspector.
The third accused, Mohit Kumar, who is absconding, is also the son of a middle-rung police official and is wanted for snatching incidents in Karnal, police said.
“Women and school going children were the prime targets of the accused, who in the past four months, have been involved in crimes such as snatching of mobile phones and wallets,” said a senior Karnal district police officer, who is investigating the case, refusing to be identified.
“During interrogation, the arrested youth said that in the past few months, their expenses had gone up and that they wanted to enjoy a certain lifestyle with expensive mobile phones and bikes. They said that they were not getting necessary monetary help from their families,” he said.
The police had caught them while selling a used mobile phone at Jundla gate in Karnal and also recovered a stolen mobile phone and a motorcycle.
Police said the accused Shivam Mehra and Rahul Kumar were living at Madhuban police complex. Both Shivam and Rahul are boxers having participated in numerous school-level competitions. “Every day they used to come for boxing practice at Karan stadium in the evening.
The duo used to snatch phones, gold chains and wallets from women while returning home, taking advantage of the dark,” Kamaldeep Rana, CIA in-charge said. The parents of the accused, police said, are in a state of shock ever since the arrest of their wards. “When we informed their parents about the arrest, they were shocked and have been in disbelief ever since,” Rana said.
Of the nine cases of snatching the accused have admitted to, four are of snatching of ladies purse, four cases of mobile snatching and another case pertains to a bike lifted from Atal park about two months back.
Police said the third accused Mohit, who is on the run, will be nabbed soon. Those accused have been booked under Sections 379 (theft) and 379 A (snatching) of the IPC.