Three criminals forced a traffic jam on a busy road near Khirki village in south Delhi and snatched the gold chain of a woman sitting in an auto-rickshaw caught in the jam on Saturday night, police said.

In her complaint to the police, Koijam Kheleshori Devi, who hails from Manipur, said one of the criminals jumped into the middle of the road, pretending to be drunk, forcing vehicles to stop. While she sitting inside an auto, two men on a scooter stopped near the vehicle, snatched her chain and sped away. On the way, they also picked up the man who was creating a ruckus on the road, she said.

The 50-year-old victim was on the way to a mall in Saket when her chain was snatched. Devi was travelling with her two sons when the incident took place.

She said by the time she could raise an alarm, the man who had pretended to be drunk and caused the snarl also hopped onto the moving scooter and fled with his two associates.

“The entire incident was captured in a CCTV camera. My relative in Delhi has seen the video footage. I have returned to Manipur after lodging the first information report (FIR) but will come to Delhi soon to pursue the case. I will make sure the police arrest the snatchers and recover my stolen chain that is worth ₹3.5 lakh,” said Devi, who runs a jewellery business at her hometown in Manipur’s Imphal, over the phone.

According to Devi, she along with her 16-year-old son had come to Delhi on May 25 to meet her 22-year-old son, currently a third year student at Delhi University.

On Saturday, Devi said, she had gone to the INA Market with her two sons for some work. Around 9.45pm, they were heading to the shopping mall in Saket in an auto-rickshaw.

“On the way to the mall, we had reached near a coffee shop in Khirki village, when a man with brown hair forced the traffic to stop by creating a ruckus on the road. He was pretending to be inebriated. As my auto stopped, a scooter stopped near us and the man riding pillion snatched my gold chain. The man who had blocked the traffic fled on the same scooter,” she said.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Vijay Kumar said that a snatching case was registered on the woman’s complaint at the Malviya Nagar police station.

“The faces of the suspects are not very clear in the video footage. We have activated our intelligence network and trying to identify and nab the suspects,” he added.

Delhi Police statistics show that at least 18 snatching cases were reported daily in Delhi till May 15 this year.

A total of 2,444 such cases were registered till May 15, an increase of 75 cases from the 2,369 cases that were registered last year during the same period.

First Published: Jun 04, 2019 06:47 IST