‘Super thief’ who stole from netas nabbed

NEW DELHI: He used to break into houses of politicians, bureaucrats, senior officials and businessmen by night and pose as a wealthy man by day flaunting his Tissot watch, dressed in stylish tuxedos and travelling by a Chevrolet Cruze. However, this super chor’s dream run ended after he was nabbed along with his stash of stolen booty.

The thief, Siddharth Mehrotra, is a graphic designer. He belongs to a well-educated family and his father used to be a bank manager. After conducting recce of upscale localities, Mehrotra realised that the residential blocks had no intercom system between the guards and residents and vehicles entering the area were not checked. He then made plans to burgle the houses.

Mehrotra and his associate Anurag Singh used to enter the localities and park their car at a safe distance. Mehrotra would ring the doorbell and hide to check if someone opened the door. If no one turned up for a while, he would break into the house while his accomplice kept a watch outside.

Siddharth Mehrotra’s run ended after he was nabbed along with his stash of stolen booty on Monday.

“Since January, many burglaries were reported from upscale areas of south Delhi after which teams led by ACP (Vasant Kunj) K P Kukrety and SHO (Vasant Kunj-N) Gagan Bhaskar were formed to conduct raids,” said DCP (south) Ishwar Singh.

When the raids turned futile, Bhaskar searched for high profile burglars in Delhi-NCR on the internet. Soon he zeroed in on Mehrotra whose physical appearance matched with a thief seen in CCTV footage from one of the burgled houses.

When cops scanned Facebook for Mehrotra’s profile, they found him sitting in a Ford Ecosport whose numberplate was clearly visible in a picture taken in Leh. The car was found registered in the name of Mehrotra’s friend Vikas Kumar with whom he had gone for a holiday to Leh in July.

Kumar told the cops that Mehrotra was living alone in a rented accommodation in Pitampura. Subsequently, a raid was conducted and he was nabbed from there. Police also found a Chevrolet Cruze, which the thief said that he had bought with money stolen in the past few months. He had also been paying his rent with the same money.

The accused had been arrested by Noida police in 2015 and released on bail in March this year. On interrogation, he confessed to having committed a series of burglaries along with two of his associates, Jitender and Anurag Singh. Jitender was the receiver of the stolen goods. He was arrested near Red Fort. Singh was also arrested from the same area while trying to flee the city.

Police have seized gold jewellery worth lakhs, currency in US dollars, Indonasian Rupiah, Nepali Rupees and electric items from the accused men. The trio said that they took to crime to fund a luxurious lifestyle, branded clothes and high-end gadgets.