Mumbai Crime: 2 youths arrested for stealing cameras to shoot songs

The accused had given fake addresses and mobile numbers to the owner of the cameras

Aarey police arrested two aspiring singers, both 23 years of age, on the charge of stealing two digital cameras. The duo had rented the devices saying they wanted to shoot songs, but went incommunicado after some days.

The cops took about a month to track down the accused, identified as Sandeep Shivkumar Verma and Sadiq Ansari, after going through countless clips on YouTube.

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Sources in the police department said that the two accused had given fake addresses and mobile numbers to the owner of the cameras. While they promised to pay Rs 1,000 a day for each camera, they neither paid the rent nor responded to the owner's calls.

Suspicious of their behaviour, the camera owner, 19-year-old Kunal Kanjia, filed a complaint with the Aarey police on November 30. The police said they had no information about the accused.

"We were just told that the two were singers, who would shoot their songs and upload them on YouTube," said an officer from Aarey police station.

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Led by Senior Inspector Nutan Pawar, a special team comprising PSI Ulhas Kholam and his detection team began the investigation. They scanned footage from CCTV cameras installed at the entrance of Film City and got the images of the accused and also the registration number of the auto in which they had come.

"We searched hundreds of Youtube videos. Finally, we found the accused in the video of a song called 'Tu Wapas Aaja'," the officer added. With the help of the auto number in the video, the police contacted its driver, a Malvani resident, and got the address of the two accused," said a police officer.

The police recovered the cameras and Rs 40,000 from them. Verma and Khan have been booked and arrested for cheating and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

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