Mobile theives snatch 150 phones during Lalbaugcha visarjan in Mumbai

Even though the cops managed to keep a check on the thefts over the nine days of the festival, the last day saw a massive surge. Pic/ Atul Kamble

Thieves had a field day during Lalbaugcha Raja's visarjan ceremony as they managed to lay their hands on about 150 mobile phones at one go. Even though the cops managed to keep a check on the thefts over the nine days of the festival, the last day saw a massive surge. However, the local police and Crime Branch arrested 13 thieves on Thursday and recovered 22 mobile phones and two gold chains from them.

Considering the massive crowds that throng Lalbaugcha Raja every year, especially during visarjan, special bandobast had been done to avoid thefts, stampede and other untoward incidents. Despite heavy police presence on the final day, thieves managed to snatch more than 100 mobile phones during visarjan. However, a total of 250 theft cases have been registered at the Kalachowky police station over nine days of the festival.

A cop said, "About 150 people have registered complaints about missing phones. Many of them who didn't have any documents left their mobile numbers with us."

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Meanwhile, Crime Branch's Unit 6 managed to nab eight mobile thieves from Shivaji Nagar. "Acting on input that the thieves were travelling in an SUV, we intercepted them at Shivaji Nagar and arrested them. We recovered two gold chains from them," said an officer.

A squad under the leadership of DCP (Zone 4), Dr Saurabh Tripathi, nabbed five thieves from different parts of Lalbaug. "Two of them from Uttar Pradesh had come to the city just to steal mobile phones during the festival. We recovered 13 mobile phones from them. A total of nine cell phones were recovered from the other three accused."

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