In an joint effort by Government Railway Police (GRP), Itarsi, and GRP Habibganj have busted two members of a gang involved in 7 crimes of robbery and stealing of mobile phones from train passengers and recovered four mobile phones from their possession.
Police said that during investigation of crimes in moving trains similar cases were probed by Habibganj and Itarsi.
In the later investigation a robbed mobile phone was tracked and recovered from Damoh and user was identified as Mobile Raja alias Raj Ahirwar (22).
During interrogation of Raja, GRP Habibganj it was found that mobile phone was sold to him by Santosh Chaudhary, who works in a private factory in Mandideep.
On the basis of this information, police station tracked Santosh Chaudhary but he came to know that the mobile user related to the stolen mobile sold by him was caught by the police and he escaped.
The police raided places like Jabalpur, Gotegaon, Narsinghpur, Mandideep Ujjain etc and arrested Santosh.
Santosh revealed his cousin Sunil has given many stolen mobiles for sale. Santosh Chaudhary used to get such stolen mobiles and sell them to locals in his area. Three other mobiles were recovered on the spot of Santosh Chaudhary, on investigation of these mobiles, the fact came to know that they were stolen mobiles in other three criminal cases.
Girdhar Tiwari was also arrested in the investigation. Mainly lady passengers were targeted, reservations in sleeper coaches were used to travel, small stations were chosen to commit crime, would recce when train halts at station, would target after midnight, from lady passengers and mobile phones which are plugged in for charging.