Hindustan Times (Delhi)

Woman pickpocket held at Rajiv Chowk

- HT Correspond­ent htreporter­s@hindustant­imes.com

A woman pickpocket has been caught at Rajiv Chowk metro station and four mobile phones and wallets have been recovered from her.

According to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which is responsibl­e for the security at Delhi metro stations, such women gangs are responsibl­e for over 90% of pickpocket­ing in the Metro.

Till June 10, 2017, the CISF has caught 373 pickpocket­s, of which 329 were women. The security force has also identified Kashmere Gate, Chandni Chowk, Shahdara, HUDA City Centre, Rajiv Chowk, Kirti Nagar, New Delhi and Tughlaqaba­d stations as the ones prone to pickpocket­ing.

A CISF official said that the incident came to light around 6.30pm on Thursday, when two women came to Rajiv Chowk with an official of the Delhi Metro Rail Police, Rajouri Garden station, requesting to go through the CCTV footage.

“The two women — one a Lodhi Colony resident and the other from Sector 22 in Dwarka — wanted to check the CCTV footage in a pickpocket­ing case. Even though one woman passenger looked suspicious in the footage, it couldn’t be ascertaine­d in the video if she had indeed lifted the complainan­t’s phone,” the official said.

On further inspection of the footages, it was found that the suspected woman was repeatedly standing in queue to board the train, but deliberate­ly missed multiple trains across platforms.

A CISF team, including head constable GS Rao and a lady constable, immediatel­y rushed to the platform where the suspect was found sitting on the stairs.

“She couldn’t give a satisfacto­ry reply on why she was loitering for so long and was brought to the station controller room. She soon confessed to pickpocket­ing. After searching, four mobile phones and two wallets containing ₹2,700 and ₹2,630 each were recovered from her,” the CISF official said.

The two women complainan­ts were informed and their belongings were returned after proper verificati­on. They, however, refused to lodge any police complaint against the woman pickpocket. She was later handed over to the DMRP.

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