South Mumbai mobile snatcher held, Byculla cops recover 15 phones

Team of Byculla Police with the recovery of the phones and accused. Pic/Mumbai Police

The Byculla Police on Monday said that after days of studying the pattern of multiple mobile phone snatchings in south Mumbai they have finally nabbed a 19-year-old suspect they had been looking for the past several days.

According to the police, a fresh incident of mobile phone snatching had come to light on December 21 after a complainant reached out to the Byculla Police and told them that he was walking on the street while talking on his phone when a man on a bike snatched his mobile. A team under the guidance of Senior Inspector Chimaji Adhav immediately began to look for technical clues and found that the suspect had a pattern of targeting people walking on streets while talking on their phones.

"The team checked multiple CCTV footage and found that the suspect had fled away towards the Saat Rasta Junction in Agripada area of Mumbai. Further, the officials in the team activated their sources network to gather information on the suspect and learnt that he was a resident of Dhobi Ghat area but when the officials conducted checks to find him, it was learnt that after the incident he had not returned to his home," said a police official.

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The police said, the team kept working on every piece of information they got from their sources and on December 24, they learnt that the suspect was to reach near Dockyard Road railway station. Accordingly, a trap was laid and the suspect was nabbed.

"He has been identified as Shubham Babulal Diwakar. After his arrest, the police have recovered as many as 15 phones from him. Investigations have revealed that he was involved in at least 5 cases of mobile phone snatching under the jurisdiction of Byculla police station alone, further investigations are going on to identify if he had been involved in other similar cases in different parts of the city," the official said.