PUNE: Four members of a
Delhi-based gang
, which goes by the moniker ‘
Handsome Group
’, stole four luxury
Rado wristwatches
worth over Rs5 lakh from an SB Road mall. Three of them were arrested on Monday.
The incident occurred on August 8, when three of the men, posing as customers, diverted the attention of the staff and stole the watches.
The theft was discovered when the shop checked its inventory on August 23. A shop official registered a complaint with the Chatushrungi police on August 25.
Inspector Anjum Bagwan (unit IV) led the investigation, which revealed that the suspects took a cab from the mall to a lodge in Mangalwar Peth. The police questioned the cab driver, and got names, addresses and cellphone numbers of the four men from the lodge’s register.
Police said the cellphone numbers were fake, but they narrowed them down to six numbers of the same series. By trial and error, they traced one number to a suspect, Ashish Bisht (30).
Police then found out that the suspects travelled from Delhi to Pune by flight. The police team coordinated with the cab aggregator and the airlines to track down three men — Bisht, Akash Dakha (26) and Ajmersingh (32). “A police team went to Delhi, arrested the trio and brought them to Pune,” inspector Bagwan said.
The suspects have been remanded in police custody till September 11. The trio admitted under questioning that they attempted theft at two other malls in Pune, but were unsuccessful. “After stealing the watches, they went to Mumbai, where they stole a T-shirt from a mall and were caught and handed over to police. They were later released on bail,” police said.
“The four men are part of a larger, 10-12 member outfit, which targets malls in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi and other cities,” Bagwan added.