Cocking a snook at law enforcing agencies in the national Capital, two bikeborne ruffians snatched cellphone of wife of the Solicitor General (SG) of India, Tushar Metha.
The daring incident occurred in front of FICCI auditorium near Mandi House area on late Sunday evening when SG's wife Aparna Mehta was having a stroll. The snatching in the highly secured New Delhi district sent the cops into a tizzy and police teams were detailed to identify the snatchers and bring them to justice.
"Police have registered a case under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Barakhamba Road Police Station and police teams have initiated manhunt to nab the accused," said a senior police official of New Delhi district.
"Police teams are also scanning the CCTV footage of the area. The complainant has told us that there was no number plate on the bike of the accused. While she was not able to see their faces as well," said the police official.
Aparna Mehta is not the only victim as the data available with Delhi Police shows that there were around 3,808 cases of snatching reported till this year's July 31st as compared to last year which were around 3,814. There was a minimal reduction of snatching incidents.
According to sources, as cell phones are the easiest to steal, there is an organised chain of thieves and receivers across the city. "Most of the thieves are in contact with engineers who quickly changes IMEI number of the phones to evade police arrest and to get a good price in the market," said the sources.
Investigations carried out by the The Pioneer revealed a well oiled chain of mobile snatchers and receivers. An engineer who did not wish to be identified displayed how the myth about IMEI's invulnerability can be dispelled in just 10 minutes. He arranged a device called a flasher. It resembled a regular Wi-Fi router. He opened the files contained on the disc on a computer and then used the flasher to connect the phone to the computer. After this was achieved, all that needed to be done was to change the digits.
"Once the IMEI is replaced with another number, the phone’s origin can never be traced. This means there could be two or more devices with the same IMEI in circulation, depending on the number inputted. And all that the unscrupulous operators charge for this work is Rs 400-800 per handset. The flasher itself costs Rs 3,000-5,000", the engineer added.
"It is easier to junk the IMEI in phones that run on the cheaper MTK processor. Handsets fitted with Qualcomm Snapdragon are harder to crack, though they are not totally tamper-resistant. Changing the IMEI number of Apple handsets is, however, not possible because the flashers do not work on iPhones. Apple phones are almost always dismantled and their parts sold separately," said a police official.