Thieves pretended to be shop owners, arrested in New Delhi

Police said the three men roamed in Shahdara, looking for godowns and shops to break into. Whenever a key fitted, they would hire a rickshaw and load it with a few cartons from the shop, pretending to be the owners

New Delhi: Three alleged thieves who roamed the streets with a bunch of keys, trying the locks on shops at random, have been arrested, police said on Friday."

Police said the three men roamed in Shahdara, looking for godowns and shops to break into. Whenever a key fitted, they would hire a rickshaw and load it with a few cartons from the shop, pretending to be the owners. They would hire another rickshaw on way to their room, trying not to leave any clue as to where from they brought the goods.

The three arrested were identified as Harish (25), a resident of Ghonda, Aman (22), a resident of New Usmanpur and Mukesh (22), a resident of Jagjit Nagar in Delhi, police said. The trio was arrested Thursday night for allegedly stealing goods from a leggings godown in Shahdara's Gandhi Nagar, they said. According to police, the owner of the godown lodged a complaint alleging that around 10 big cartons of the garment each containing over 300 pairs of leggings were missing while the locks of the godown were found intact.

"During investigation, police laid a trap near the godown and arrested the accused on Thursday night when they came there to steal goods," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Meghna Yadav said. Interrogation revealed that the accused had a bunch of keys and during night hours, they randomly tried the locks on the shops and godowns.

After a key fitted, they hired a rickshaw to load it with just 2-3 cartons of the stolen goods, the DCP said. After some distance, they would change the rickshaw to bring the stolen goods to their room. They used to repeat the same after 2-3 days, police said. Two cartons were recovered at their instance from the room of Aman. The accused sold the remaining cartons to one Manoj from Agra at a very cheap rate, they said. Raids are being conducted to nab Manoj, police said.

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