Garment shop robbery: Three pregnant women thieves ‘conned’ cops
The women would lift the shutter of a shop up to 1-2 feet to gain entry, while the pregnant women would keep a watch outside, as they don’t raise immediate suspicion
A day after the police arrested seven members of a women’s gang for targeting a garment shop in Salem Tabri area, it has come to the fore that three women were pregnant.
According to the police, the women revealed that they used to recce shops on the pretext of picking garbage. The women would commit theft early in the morning between 2 am and 4 am and mostly target garments shops. They would lift the shutter of a shop up to 1-2 feet to gain entry, while the pregnant women would keep a watch outside, as they don’t raise immediate suspicion.
Chhoti, who is the main conspirator and is six months pregnant hired an auto-rickshaw for ₹1,500, which ferried her to several markets to recce shops.
Chhoti then involved other women to commit thefts. The women would lift the shutter of a shop to gain entry while pregnant women would keep a watch outside to trick the police.
As per the statements given by these women to the police, they used to sell the stolen items as their husbands are unemployed. These women are slum dwellers who reside in shanties near the railway station in Mullanpur.
Auto driver Paras Kumar led to the arrest of the women thieves.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP, city 1) Deepak Pareek said that Paras Kumar would pick the women from Mullanpur Dakha in the morning and ferry them around the city to find their target.
“The accused had stolen garments worth ₹80,000 from a shop in Salem Tabri area on the intervening night of July 25 and 26. The police have recovered 22 suits from their possession including ₹4,650 in cash, which they had earned by selling the garments,” he added.
He added that the accused were captured in the CCTVs installed near the shop. The police circulated the video on social networking sites for the identification of the accused. On Friday the police got information about the gang.
The gang had committed a similar crime in November 2019 in Model Town. The accused have confessed their involvement in four such incidents in Ludhiana, Dakha, and Khanna.