Delhi BTech graduate held for duping delivery boy, stealing ₹90K watch to surprise girlfriend

A 22-year-old BTech graduate was arrested for allegedly conning the delivery boy of a wristwatch worth ₹90,000, which he had ordered online as a “surprise gift” for his girlfriend, police said on Thursday.

Police recovered the watch and a Hunk motorcycle that the man had used in the crime. They said the man had planned to gift the watch to his girlfriend on her birthday.

Deputy commissioner of police (North) Nupur Prasad said Vaibhav Khurana, a resident of Delhi’s Model Town, wanted to impress his girlfriend by gifting her an expensive wristwatch. However, he did not have the money to buy the same. He then hatched a plan to order the watch through an e-commerce site, con the delivery boy and then walk away with it , said DCP Prasad.

According to the DCP, on July 23, Khurana ordered a Rado wristwatch priced ₹90,000 which was available on the website for ₹67,000. He tendered a false address somewhere in Civil Lines.

When the delivery boy, Kalipada Sahu, contacted Khurana on the mobile number through which the order was booked to confirm his availability and to confirm the address where the delivery was to be made, Khurana asked Sahu to meet him elsewhere.

“Khurana asked Sahu to meet him outside the Kashmere Gate Metro station. The two met there and Khurana tricked Sahu into accompanying him on his bike to Civil Lines, saying he would collect the order and pay the money at home,” said Prasad.

Police said Khurana took Sahu outside a house at Rajpur Road in Civil Lines, which was not his home. He asked Sahu to ring the door bell while Khurana allegedly left with the bag containing the delivery box on the pretext of parking his bike. Sahu then approached the Civil Lines police and filed a case.

During the probe, an investigator said, the mobile number that Khurana used for booking the order was found registered in the name of Virender Nath Shukl from Delhi’s GTB Nagar. Shukl was questioned and his claim that he was no more using the mobile number was found to be true.

“We then analysed the call details of the mobile number and identified some frequently contacted numbers. One of the numbers was of a woman in Model Town. We contacted her and she told us that the number belonged to her boyfriend Vaibhav Khurana,” the officer said, adding Khurana’s home was raided and the stolen watch and the bike were recovered.

Khurana completed his BTech course from Indraprastha University and is employed as a supervisor in a hotel in Gurugram. His father is a property dealer.