Cops recover CCTV footage of man who snatched phone from 18-yr-old inside Mumbai train

The Bandra Government Railway Police (GRP) have recovered the CCTV recording of the robber who snatched the mobile phone of an 18-year-old girl seated inside a local train when it halted at Santacruz station and fled after jumping on to the tracks.

The incident took place on Saturday night. Bandra GRP officials said after registering a case in connection with the incident, they scoured through the CCTV recordings of the station and platform number 4 at the Santacruz station, to get a glimpse of the robber. “Although the scene inside the train was not captured by any camera, the police had searched for the recordings of the platform to find out from where the man entered the premises,” said Sunilkumar Jadhav, senior inspector, Bandra GRP.

Jadhav said although they have not been able to identify the robber yet, they are trying to catch him. “This robber does not feature in our record criminal list, which means he has not been caught by the GRP in any crime in the city. We are now trying to identify him with the help of the CCTV footage,” he said.

The incident took place on Saturday around 10.30pm, when the victim Miloni Parekh, a student of fashion design, was travelling from Kandivli to Grant Road. Parekh said everything had happened in a flash, within 20 seconds – the duration a local train halts at a station. Parekh said she and her mother were seated in the second-class ladies’ compartment with their backs facing the door when the robber entered the compartment.

“I was seated on the third seat of the bench with my phone in my hands,” Parekh said. As the train reached Santacruz station, a man jumped inside and within the blink of an eye, tried to snatch her phone from her hands. Parekh said she had tried to hold on to it but the young robber, who she said was wearing a white T-shirt, pulled at the phone and dragged Parekh till the footboard of the train door. When Parekh let go of her phone, he hit her on the back of her hand and fled after jumping out on the tracks.

Parekh said there were about 12 other women in the compartment who shouted at the robber, but none had come to her aid. She said there was no police constable in the train, either. The police had then registered a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.