Mumbai Crime: Mobile thief caught after 300-m chase

Girish Yelappa, the thief

A mobile phone thief was caught after a 300-m chase at Dadar railway station on Wednesday.

Girish Yellappa, 26, a Dadar resident, spotted a man sleeping on platform 5 of the station, ascertained if he was indeed asleep -- he shook and kicked him -- and stole a phone kept in the shirt pocket.

Satish Menon, Dadar Railway Protection Force (RPF) inspector, said an RPF constable, Vijay Bhosale, saw the theft from another platform, crossed the tracks and began chasing the thief. Yellappa ran and hid in a toilet on the premises, 300 m away.

Bhosale waited for him for 20 minutes to drop his guard and get out. As soon as Yellappa came out of the toilet, the constable nabbed him. But the phone was not in his possession. Bhosale then searched the toilet and found it stuffed inside one of the stalls.

Yellappa was booked under sections of the IPC.

Another habitual thief, Asif Akhtar Raees Sheikh, 35, was arrested from Kurla station by the woman RPF team yesterday. He had earlier been arrested three times by the same team for similar offences.