NEW DELHI: It was love at first sight for Sidharth Malhotra and Simran when they saw each other across their terraces a few years ago in southwest Delhi. Sidharth had returned from Dehradun after passing his Class IX from a school there, while Simran had completed her Class X from Kendriya Vidyalaya in Janakpuri. What started with bunking school to watch movies and smoke marijuana eventually turned them into drug addicts. Their habit soon made them quit school and take to crime to fund drug procurement.
The pair started by stealing from their homes, but with their increasing drug requirement beginning to cost around Rs 100, they started committing street crimes. A snatched mobile phone or necklace was easy to dispose of and fetched quick money.
After getting stoned, the two would carry out dry runs and experiment with sure shot ways to snatch and flee. Then, Sidharth, an expert biker, would wriggle through crowded traffic with ease and Simran would divest unaware people of their phones and chains.
However, two back-to-back incidents in Vikaspuri in February, caught on CCTV cameras, led the 20-year-olds into the police dragnet. After arresting them, the cops have contacted their families and are trying to help them with their addiction. A police officer said, “With the help of their family members, we are making efforts to rehabilitate them.”
The cops started tracking the duo when a woman approached them with a complaint on February 28. She reported that she was waiting for an e-rickshaw near Reliance Mall in Vikaspuri when two bike-borne persons approached her. They rode right up to her and the pillion rider, whom she realised seconds later was a girl, grabbed her mobile phone. The two then zoomed away.
“An FIR was registered and a team formed under SHO Mahender Singh Dahiya to investigate the matter,” disclosed Urvija Goel, DCP (West). “The teams scanned the footage from around a dozen CCTV cameras installed around the scene of crime.”
The cops finally spotted the duo in the footage from some of the cameras and developed local intelligence about them. An informer tipped off the cops about their movements after which cops kept them under scrutiny and arrested them while on a crime run.
The phone the two had snatched on February 28 was recovered from them. Their involvement in another case of snatching reported on February 5 was also confirmed. The cops have contacted other police stations nearby and shared the details of the boy-girl suspect to find out if there were more snatchings involving them.