Mother-son duo bag lifters and receiver of stolen property arrested

With the arrest of Savita Gandhi @ Saroj Gandhi and her son Ajay Gandhi, both resident of Subhash Nagar, Delhi and Suresh r/o Tank Road, Karol Bagh, PS Sarojini Nagar, the team of PS Sarojini Nagar, South District has busted a gang of notorious bag lifters who used to target elite customers, visiting branded showrooms, located at crowded markets such as Sarojini Nagar, Central Market, Lajpat Nagar, etc.

Brief facts :

On 21^st May 2016, one Mrs. Ankita r/o Ber Sarai, Delhi had gone to Sarojini Naagr Market for shopping and while she was purchasing shoes at a shoe store “Fashion.Com”, at Babu Market, she kept aside her bag containing three mobile phones worth Rs 50,000/-, cash Rs 10,000/- and debit/credit cards of different banks. In a click of seconds, she found her bag was missing. She informed the shop owner.  On checking of footage of CCTV, installed in the showroom, a lady, aged around 50 years was seen taking away the bag.  In the recent weeks, dozens of such incidents were reported in PS Sarojini Nagar. In order to apprehend the culprits involved in such criminal activities, a team comprising Inspector V.K.P.S. Yadav, SHO/Sarojini Nagar, SI Nand Kishore, HC Kulshrestha, HC Rajeev Tyagi, Ct Pradeep Kumar, Ct Balwant and W/Ct. Omwati under the close supervision of Sh. S.P. Tyagi, ACP/Safdarjung Enclave was formed. The CCTV footage of lady suspect was shared with beat staff, volunteers of market, shopkeepers and vendors. They were briefed to keep an eye over her.  Since market is visited by around 50-60 thousand visitors daily and has many ingress, it was a herculean task to identify and apprehend a lady on the basis of CCTV footage.

On 08.06.16, suspect Savita @ Saroj Gandhi came to Sarojini Nagar market with the intention to strike again. The vigilant staff deployed in Sarojini Nagar market namely HC Kulshrestha and Ct Pradeep noticed the suspicious activities of a lady of similar description and was interrogated. Initially, she tried to misguide the duo cops.  Subsequently, her antecedents were checked and her residence at Subhash Nagar was searched which resulted in recovery of 39 ladies’s bags of various makes.

Interrogation :

During interrogation, accused disclosed the name of her son Ajay Gandhi who used to dispose off the stolen items i.e. mobile phones through their one associate  Suresh @ Honey r/o Tank Road, Karol Bagh who deals in sale and purchase of mobile phones. At the instance of accused Ajay Gandhi, receiver of stolen property namely Suresh @ Honey was arrested and 22 stolen mobile phones were recovered from his possession.  All the three accused revealed that they are involved in more than hundred cases of bag lifting committed at Sarojini Market and Central Market, Lajpat Nagar.

On further interrogation, they revealed that they used to strike in branded showrooms located in crowded markets because customers visiting such showrooms usually carry sufficient amount and other valuable items in their bags and it was very easy to disappear in the crowd of the market after stealing the bags. The South–East District police has also been informed to interrogated the accused persons. Accused Savita @ Saroj Gandhi has earlier been arrested by PS Rani Bagh in theft case.