Making easy money is their aim and snatching is the only skill they have, wreaking havoc by not only snatching people's valuables but also turning to heinous crime by attacking victims with guns and knives with impunity. Sangeeta Yadav speaks to the police to find out how snatchers have become the big menace of small crime
A girl is walking to office alongside busy traffic on a Delhi road in the late afternoon. Her bag is on her right shoulder and she is on her phone when she suddenly feels a jerk. Even before she realises what has happened, two men on a bike violently try to snatch her purse. She pulls the other way. The only reason why they let go of her is their inability to flee in slow moving traffic.
In the last couple of months, the Capital has seen a spurt of such blatant snatchings. Men on bikes getting away with gold chains was common but, of late, they are everywhere and no one is safe from them, be it morning, day, evening or night, be it busy marketplace, an office area or the street.
Making easy money is their aim and snatching is the only skill they have. This band is wreaking havoc by not only snatching people’s valuables but also attacking victims with guns and knives.
Several hands will go up if you ask if they have been victims of snatching. Most will have a tale to tell that will leave you wondering how the perpetrators could come up with such ideas from which nothing is safe. From gold chains to mobile phones, to purses to briefcases to laptops — anything and everything is liable to be snatched. Make a mistake and it is gone. Resist and out comes a knife or worse even a country-made gun like Priyanka Goyal found out the other day much to her horror.
last October, Goyal, a doctor with the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute & Research Centre, was out with her daughter in Rohini Market when she was shot in the leg after she tried to chase two bike-borne men who had snatched her gold chain.
On February 28, 2018, Tasvir Singh was shot in his abdomen outside a money exchange company at Connaught Place after he resisted a snatching attempt by two men. The snatchers were waiting outside the office since 8 am and tried to rob Singh at 10 am just as he reached his office. On failing to snatch Singh’s bag, the two shot him and walked away. Singh was rushed to Ram Manohar lohia hospital in a critical state.
“The mindset of this new breed of snatchers is different. They rush away from the crime scene. Snatching is not a heinous crime so people involved look at it as a quick getaway. Juveniles get into it to make fast money and the chances of getting caught are slim. With robbery, there is a challenge since there is planning and time consumption. There is a weapon involved. There is also a tussle between the police or the public and the criminal,” Dependra Pathak, special commissioner of police (Traffic), says.
As a crime, snatching is pettier than robbery but more serious than theft. Snatching is a crime of anonymity. The victim never gets to see the perpetrator. It takes place within a fraction of a second. The predator comes, grabs the valuables and runs. By the time the victim realises what has happened, it is too late to catch hold of him or raise an alarm. When they use a weapon and the time taken to commit the crime increases, it is called robbery. The victim gets into a tussle with the perpetrators and may get hurt or killed.
On August 8, 2017, 28-year-old Asmita who had fallen off a running auto while trying to save her bag from snatchers, battled for life at the AIIMS Trauma Centre for 12 days before finally succumbing to her severe head injuries. The incident took place at Panchsheel Marg near the Hauz Khas Metro station when three motorcycle-borne snatchers went for her handbag that contained her mobile phone, identity card, cash cards and money. The snatchers dragged her for several meters before they let go of the bag and were forced to flee the spot.
A 43-year-old woman died on September 3, 2017 after she was hit by a running train while trying to save her bag from a snatcher near the Old Delhi railway station. The cops nabbed two men, one of them a minor.
Who are these snatchers and what is their modus operandiIJ “Most are bootleggers, juveniles and school dropouts. They never had parenting control and harbour greed to own expensive phones, and make fast money. They usually reside in unorganised colonies and come from the NCR region. Due to the lack of border policing, it becomes easy for these criminals to escape to other States,” Pathak says.
Children as young as 10 are trained by gangs on how to ride a bike and escape the crime scene. As per the Crime in Delhi Report of 2017 compiled by RP Upadhyay, Special Commissioner of Police, 91.74 per cent of the total arrested criminals were first-time offenders and 66.24 per cent illiterate or school dropouts. After mastering snatching, these first-time offenders graduate to becoming robbers and history-sheeters and even travel to other cities to commit more heinous crime.
Women too are involved in this growing racket. On January 26 this year, 32-year-old Ramanjeet Kaur, who used to dress up like a man and snatch mobiles and gold chains with her male friend on a bike, was arrested in Delhi. The police found her involvement in nine cases of snatching, robbery and carrying a weapon. She was declared a habitual offender and an externee from Delhi two years ago.
In April 2018, a gang of snatchers who had roped in their girlfriends, was busted in Shahdara. A 17-year-old girl, a resident of Sultanpuri, was caught red-handed when she and her boyfriend Ankit were on a snatching spree. Several stolen items were recovered from the duo.
The targets are easy to mark. If you are travelling in a rickshaw, auto or walking on the road talking on the phone or just holding your phone in your hand and are distracted about your belongings, you are a perfect target. You are vulnerable when you step out of the metro station, bank or money exchange centre.
The large expansion of new colonies like Dwarka and Rohini and mushrooming of unplanned colonies are criminogenic factors which have a direct effect on street crimes like robberies and snatching. In 2017, 8,051 cases of snatching were reported as compared to 9,202 cases in 2016. Around 4,490 (55.77 per cent) cases were solved with the arrest of 5,947 persons. Till March 2018, 1,507 cases of snatching were reported.
In 2017, Delhi Police arrested three desperate snatchers of the Bunty Gang— Arun, Bunty, Rahul — who were involved in over 83 cases of snatching and motor vehicle thefts in Delhi. Five accused from the Pasonda gang from Shahdara got arrested and solved 43 cases of robberies, snatching and others.
Anand Vihar tops the snatchings chart in Delhi —176 — till September 15, 2017, followed by Vivek Vihar with 132 incidents and Seemapuri with 130. Hari Nagar and Prashant Vihar occupy the fourth and fifth positions, with 120 and 117 cases, respectively. Areas like Janakpuri, Rajouri Garden, Tilak Nagar, New Usmanpur and Shahdara are in the bottom-five list, with Shahdara at 10th place with 99 snatchings till September 15, 2017.
The study also shows that mobile phones are snatched in half the reported cases and gold chains or mangal sutras in 22.27 per cent cases. The rest of the snatched items comprise bags, laptop, briefcase and much more.
Identifying a pattern in snatchings, Pathak adds: “The chain snatchers’ mode of mobility is motorcycle which, in many cases, are stolen vehicles. Snatching takes place by pedestrians too but they are so clever that they escape by fooling the public. The predators look for a less visited road with good chances of escape. In most cases, the victims are women as it is easy to take away a chain, mobile phone or handbag from them. A lot of men reported snatchers taking away their expensive mobile phones and laptops costing Rs 10,000 to a lakh.”
An analysis by Maharashtra Police revealed that due to the increasing rate of gold, chain snatching cases have increased. Instead of selling gold ornaments, some chain snatchers are keeping it as mortgage with renowned gold loan companies for taking loans.
“Snatching is one of the biggest street crimes which has created an element of fear and trauma. Despite the police patrolling and CCTV cameras installed at various places, snatchers manage to flee the crime scene. When they do get caught, they are booked under Section 379 of IPC (punishment for theft) or Section 356 for assault or criminal force in attempt to commit theft of property carried by a person,” Pathak tells you.
There is no separate law or punishment for chain-snatching. Theft gets them a maximum of three years in jail with/both fine. Assault for theft is only two years of jail. Robbery carries a sentence of 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine. But due to lack of evidence, the robbery charges are discarded in most cases.
In 2015, the Haryana Government amended its rulebook to deal with snatching and added two new sections under Section 379 dealing with theft — 379 A that has made rigorous imprisonment of minimum five to maximum 10 years and a fine of Rs 25,000. Under 379 B, snatching becomes a non-bailable offence. The State Government recently also proposed a reward for information on snatchers.
There are many challenges in ways to bringing down snatching cases. From the shortage of police patrolling staff at checkpoints, to cops hesitant to file FIRs and instead, going for a more informal complaint so as to keep the crime rate low, the challenges are many. With a low conviction rate, snatchers get an escape route and come out of jail within a few months.
“The victim goes into shock and rarely remembers the snatcher’s face or the vehicle he was riding on. After filing a case, victims don’t come for follow-up and thus, the case closes. Also, they quickly dispose of the things they snatch,” Pathak says.
Unlike Delhi which is yet to take this crime seriously, a small town in the south, Coimbatore, has gone all out on its war on snatchers.
All police stations in Coimbatore underwent the laborious task of collecting details of persons involved in chain snatching in the last five years. Those found active were arrested under Section 399 of the IPC (Making preparation to commit dacoity). Patrolling has been beefed up between 5 am to 8 am and 5 pm and 9 pm in areas where more chain snatching cases were reported. Around 30 chain-snatching cases, reported since January 2018, the police managed to solve 20 cases and recover the chains snatched by the offenders.
Perhaps the National Capital Region needs to do the same.