DELHI: The Delhi Police on Tuesday he claimed to have arrested the drug lord Namaste gang who used to greet people with folded hands before robbing them. Chand mohammad (35), a resident of Faridabad in Haryana, attacked the elderly by posing as an acquaintance or friend of one of their relatives and taking away their jewelry, police said.
He had committed more than 100 such crimes in Delhi and its neighboring areas since 2017, they said.
The accused greeted his victims with folded hands and sought their blessings by touching their feet. Then he would ask them to give him their jewelry under some pretext and they would flee, police said.
Along with the defendants, the police also arrested one Dinesh Kumar Soni (47), a resident of Faridabad, who allegedly bought the stolen items from Mohammad.
According to police, the matter came to light after a complaint was received from a 70-year-old woman on October 17.
In her complaint, the woman said that Mohammad made the gesture of ‘Namaste’ and touched her feet before introducing himself as a jeweler known to one of his relatives.
She then asked him to give her the gold earrings she was wearing, and after taking the jewelry, she fled there, police said.
About his complaint, a case was registered under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code at Maidan Garhi Police Station, said Atul Kumar Thakur, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South).
On the same day, a similar incident occurred in the Neb Sarai area, where the defendant deceived another elderly man using the same modus operandi, he said.
“The defendant had committed similar crimes in the Maidan Garhi area, Neb Sarai, Sangam Vihar, Govindpuri, Ambedkar Nagar, Malviya Nagar and other areas of the southern district previously. To catch the defendant, our team collected CCTV footage of the incident and identified him and the vehicle used to commit the crime“said the DCP.
The defendants had also attacked several people in the West Delhi district between 2017 and 2020.
CCTV footage of multiple incidents in Hari Nagar, Tilak nagar, The areas of Rajauri Garden, Kirti Nagar, Patel Nagar, Punjabi Bagh and Kapashera in West Delhi were analyzed, he said.
During the investigation, the scooter used by the defendant was tracked to an empty spot near a park where it was parked. The team set a trap there, and after waiting four days, they caught Mohammad.
The defendant told police that he had stolen jewelry worth around Rs 60 lakh, but lost most of it in gambling. AMP RHL
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