Two held for snatching magistrate’s phone, two others for buying it

NEW DELHI: Two days after the mobile phone of a metropolitan magistrate was snatched from north Delhi’s Kamla Nagar, the police on Wednesday said they have arrested the two snatchers in connection with the incident, as well as two others who were part of their gang.

The snatched iphone 11 Promax -—which costs over ₹1 lakh in Delhi — changed hands thrice within two days after the crime and was finally sold for ₹10,000, said an investigator.

Police said that the snatched mobile phone was recovered. They identified the two arrested suspects as Karan, 20, and Raheem, 19. While Karan has a criminal record, Raheem seemed to have had none, said the officer.

The police identified the buyers of the stolen phone as Durga Prasad and Muzammil Ahmed. While Prasad is a garments vendor, Ahmed is a physically challenged man.

“Prasad and Ahmed were part of the chain for the disposal of stolen mobile phones. They have no previous police cases against them, but have been a part of this gang for sometime,” said the officer.

The phone was stolen from metropolitan magistrate, Viplav Dabas, while he was speaking to someone over the phone outside his house in Kamla Nagar at 8 pm on Monday. Two men riding a scooter had snatched the phone.

The police had responded by tasking the police of three districts (north, north-west and central) of cracking the case since the snatchers were suspected of being residents of these areas. “We had increased our area of search since our technical surveillance had revealed that the phone was switched off in Roop Nagar,” said the officer.

Finally, armed with surveillance footage, the police nabbed the two suspects from Bharat Nagar on Wednesday, but learnt that they had already sold the phone.

“We arrested the first buyer, Durga Prasad, but got to know that he had sold the phone to Ahmed. We then arrested Ahmed and recovered the phone from them. We have arrested both the men as they knew it was a stolen phone,” said the officer.