Snatchers target festive shoppers in Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: A snatchers fled with the bag grabbed from a woman at Manimajra on Wednesday night. On her statement, police have registered a case and started scanning the CCTV images from nearby security cameras.


In her complaint, Madhu Gupta of Modern Housing Complex, Manimajra, said that she had gone for festival shopping on Karwa Chauth at the Manimajra market around 9pm.

After the shopping trip, she was heading home on foot when a man sneaked in on her from behind and ran away after snatching her mobile phone and bag. The purse contained Rs 10,000 cash and other documents.

She raised an alarm, at which a few passersby ran to help and tried to catch the snatcher, who managed to dodge them all. People helped the woman report the matter to police by dialling 112. Manimajra station house offier (SHO) Jaswinder Kaur and other cops got there and sealed the area for a search operation. Later, police recorded the statement of Madhu.

Two motorcycle-borne men snatched a gold chain from a woman in the Manimajra market on Thursday evening. In her complaint, Neha Dhiman, 28, of Pipliwala town in Manimajra reported that she was heading to a market around 5pm when these men sneaked in on her from behind and grabbed a 2-tola gold chain off her neck. She called cops from the Manimajra police station to the spot. Police registered a case and got down to scanning the CCTV images from nearby security cameras.

In another incident, Senorita Gupta, 24, of Sector 19, reported theft of her purse in the neighbourhood market where she had gone for shopping around 2pm on Wednesday. As she was busy selecting items, two woman standing nearby stole her purse, which contained Rs 4,000 cash , credit and debit cards, Aadhar card, and driving license. She reported the matter to the Sector-19 police and registered an FIR (first-information report).

The police data is for the period till October 15 and is compared with the corresponding period of 2017. Police arrested 93 snatchers this year and claimed to solved 59 cases with it. They claim to have recovered 3 snatched gold chains , 41 mobile phones, 15 purses, and various documents from the arrested snatchers. Last year, they had arrested 190 snatchers and claimed to have solved 129 cases with it in the same period, while 163 cases were worked out with the arrest of 195 people in the entire 2017.

In 2018, police had recovered 17 gold chains, an earring, 4 gold bangles, 63 mobile phones, and 47 purses from arrested snatchers. They had recovered 30 snatched gold chains, 82 mobile phones. and 63 purses from snatchers in 2017. Speaking to TOI, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Nilambari Vijay Jagdale said: "Various steps have been taken by the Department to control the cases of snatchings. Police identified places where snatching was frequent and then made temporary and permanent pickets at those spots."

Each and every police official at hand was deployed in the field and their performances crosschecked. Cops were even shifted to other places if their performance was not found satisfactory, she said.