A Mumbai-based gang that poses as policemen and targets senior citizens has struck again in the capital. In a span of 30 minutes, the gang targeted a senior citizen and the wife of an army officer in Malviya Nagar who were both robbed of their valuables.
Police say the gang belongs to Mumbai and visits the city every second month to commit crimes in quick succession in upscale Delhi localities. The gang then returns to Mumbai by the next flight before police get a clue about their whereabouts.
In the first incident, the accused targeted a 63-year-old senior citizen, identified as Saroj Sobti, who stepped out to get groceries. In her complaint to police, the woman said that when she reached ITI Circle a man who claimed to be a cop approached her and told her that a senior cop wanted to talk to her. Meanwhile, the “senior officer” approached Sobti and asked her why she was being so careless and wearing gold jewellery in such a ‘crime-prone area’.
The men, who appeared to be in their thirties, made Sobti take off her gold bangles and place them in her bag. Sobti told the police that while the men were helping her put away the jewellery, they to secure the bangles with a strip of cloth tied in knots. After they had left, Sobti looked inside her bag but instead of her jewellery found only a peice of cloth.
When she reached Malviya Nagar police station to lodge a complaint, Sobti found that another woman, a wife of a serving lieutenant in the Army, had also been duped in the same manner.
Police sources said just before this incident, two men on a bike had stopped Shobha Nayyar near Punjab National Bank in the Gitanjali area and told her that a crime had taken place in the area and that criminals were in the area. Asking her to be careful, the men advised Nayyar to take off her jewellery and keep it in her bag. Minutes later, she found her jewellery missing. The police have registered a case of cheating, fraud and theft and are probing the matter. Police sources said they suspect this is to be the work of the Mumbai gang due to their unique modus operandi of ‘tying knots’ while cheating their victims. Besides this the criminals who usually operate in the Malviya Nagar area all have solid alibis.