3 snatchers get 5 years RI

Ludhiana: A local court has sentenced three persons to five years rigorous imprisonment after it found them guilty in a snatching case. The court of additional sessions judge Tarntaran Singh Bindra also imposed a fine of Rs10,000 on two convicts, and Rs10,500 on one convict, and in default of payment of fine, the two convicts will undergo further rigorous imprisonment for a month, whereas the third convict will have to under rigorous imprisonment for one month and one week.

During investigation, the two accused were found to be juvenile, and a challan against them was presented before the Juvenile Justice Board.

On 1 March last year, Kotwali police station booked Varinder Singh (28) of Janta Nagar, Lucky Singh (22) near Durga Mandir (originally from Fazilka), and Beeru (27) of Mohalla Prem Nagar, Field Ganj, under sections 379-B (snatching) and 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) of the IPC.

As per prosecution, police received secret information that the accused persons snatch mobile phones from railway passengers after brandishing a sickle at them. On Friday, the accused were arrested at a checkpost in Kesar Ganj Mandi Chowk. Mobile phones were recovered from their possession, for which they could not produce any documents of ownership. After their arrest, police presented a chargesheet against them in the court of law.

During the case trial, the accused pleaded false implication. Additional public prosecutor for the state submitted that police registered a case against the accused and their associates with respect to snatching of mobile phones by them before 1 March last year. He pleaded for punishment to the accused on the basis of prosecution witnesses, including prosecution witnesses Sucharu Aggarwal and Roohi Atri, whose mobiles were also snatched.

The defence counsel pleaded that ASI Narinder Pal was a complainant in the case, and he himself had investigated the matter, which vitiated the trial. The court turned down the defence plea and observed: “There is no legal bar to the extent that ASI Narinder Pal was not competent to investigate the matter.” The counsel for the accused pleaded that no independent witness had joined police proceedings at the time of the alleged recovery.

The court did not find any force in the defence plea, and held that merely due to the non-joining of any independent witness, either at the time of recording of the statement or effecting recovery of the stolen mobile of Sucharu Aggarwal, it cannot be said that any dent had been caused to the prosecution case. The prosecution not only succeeded in proving the snatching of Sucharu’s phone and theft of Roohi’s phone, but also proved on record that the above mobile phones were recovered from the possession of accused Beeru.

The court, while acquitting Lucky and Varinder of charges under Section 411 of the IPC, said the prosecution had failed to prove on record the theft of articles recovered from Lucky and Varinder. The court convicted Varinder and Lucky for snatching, and Beeru for snatching and dishonestly receiving stolen property.