Mumbai: 35-year-old habitual thief held

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The Mumbai Police's Crime Branch has nabbed a 35-year-old thief, who in April had broken into a mobile shop and escaped with 118 mobile phones and cash worth Rs 25 lakh. The accused, a habitual thief, had previously stolen booze and cash worth lakhs of rupees from a liquor shop.

On April 29, the owner of Mobile Phone Hub on Vikhroli Village Road, alerted the police about a break-in at his shop. According to the complaint, 67 iPhones and 52 android phones worth Rs 67.5 lakh, and cash worth Rs 25 lakh were stolen. An offence was registered against unknown persons under IPC Sections 457 (house breaking at night) and 380 (theft). "During screening of the CCTV footage, we zeroed in on a person who had come on a scooter and left the area with heavy baggage. The image was circulated to identify the accused," said an official with the Vikhroli Police.

Unit 7 of the Crime Branch launched a parallel probe to track the accused. During preliminary investigation, an informer identified the accused as Ramniwas Manju Gupta, who lived in Diva. "In the beginning of June, we got a tip off that he had spoken with his wife and delivered an iPhone to her. We finally managed to track him to Nashik," said Mahesh Tawde, in-charge of Unit 7 Gupta was arrested and is in police custody.

Rs 92.5L
Total value of mobile phones and cash that was stolen