Fatka thief gets 4 yrs in jail

Court says act detrimental to lives of passengers

A sessions court on Monday sentenced a 39-year-old man to four years of rigorous imprisonment for a ‘fatka’ mobile theft at Bandra railway station in 2018. The court observed that the act is detrimental to the lives of passengers.

Additional Sessions Judge BV Wagh said in his judgment, “Incidents of mobile theft from running trains are flashed everyday in dailies and in the incidents innocent passengers have lost their lives.”

The man, Sanjay Behra, a footpath dweller near Mahim church, had pleaded that a minimum sentence be imposed upon him as he has responsibility of family and is poor. Judge Wagh said in his order, “The accused appears to be from poor strata of society and for his livelihood, he took the easy course of troubling the lives of passengers.”

Behra had been in jail since his arrest soon after the incident on October 23, 2018. The court directed that period he has spent in prison be deducted from his sentence.

Appearing before the court, the victim, Umesh Mandal, had deposed that he was commuting from Dadar to Santacruz after some shopping around 6.20 pm on that day. He was standing at the door in the luggage compartment of the Borivali local. When the train reached the Bandra station at platform no 1, a man from another train which was at platform no. 2, had inflicted a forceful blow on his hand. The mobile had fallen into the compartment of the accused and he had fled. Mandal had raised an alarm. An assistant sub-inspector Krishna Londhe who had heard the shouts while patrolling had seen the thief running between platform no 2 and 3 and had nabbed him. Mandal had then called on his mobile number, Londhe had answered it and asked him to lodge the complaint.