Farmers Movement Archive

Delhi: Gang cheated scores on pretext of giving travel tickets, 5 held

NEW DELHI: A phone call about a 15-year-old missing boy has led police to unearth a racket that used to cheat and rob people on pretext of providing them bus or train tickets. Five men have been arrested in this connection. They have been identified as 40-year-old Sanjay Yadav from Balia, UP; Lal Babu Sahani (27) from Muzaffarpur, Bihar; and Santosh Kumar (27), Rakesh Mandal (26) and Rajeev Mandal (22) from Sitamarhi, Bihar. With their arrest, police claimed to have solved 27 cases of theft and robbery. Forty-two mobile phones, 20 luggage bags, eight wallets, 13 ATM cards and other valuables have been recovered from them. The forgery came to light when a Haryana resident, Sanjay Kumar, complained that on October 5, he and his 15-year-old son had come to the Singhu border from Sonepat to go to Barabanki in UP. “They boarded an e-rickshaw to reach ISBT, Kashmere Gate. Three other men also boarded the e-rickshaw pretending that they were travelling to Lucknow and befriended them,” said Vijayanta Arya, DCP northwest. When the complainant told them he didn’t have a train or bus ticket to travel, they asked him to come along to a bus ticket counter in Jahangirpuri assuring to get him a ticket up to Barabanki from there. The unsuspecting father-son duo went with them to Jahangirpuri. There, a “ticket agent” asked the complainant to give his ATM card for buying bus tickets. The man gave the card to his son and sent him with the accused to buy the tickets. Suddenly, the complainant got nine messages on his mobile phone, regarding withdrawal of total Rs 68,500 from his account. When he could not find his son for an hour, he made a PCR call. However, the child was found in a nearby area later. The boy told his father that the accused asked him for the ATM PIN, withdrew money from a kiosk and ran away. A case was subsequently registered. Police obtained CCTV footage of the area and spotted five suspects. On Saturday, they got information that the accused were spotted near the Haiderpur Metro station. A trap was laid and all five were caught.

The Times of India

2020-10-13

Delhi