A man was arrested days after a 66-year-old woman suffered fatal injuries when she fell off an e-rickshaw during an snatching incident in north Delhi’s Civil Lines area, police said on Thursday.
The incident took place on December 17, when Kesang Dorjee, who hailed from Arunachal Pradesh, was going from Majnu Ka Tila to Vidhan Sabha metro station in the three-wheeler.
The 36-year-old arrested accused Umesh Khari is a history-sheeter and many criminal cases are registered against him in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, police said.
Khari told police he also helped a person get her daughter admitted to a good school by giving him some cash from the bag he had snatched from the elderly woman.
“A father of five daughters, Khari has been committing crime for the last 20 years. He has been caught on a very few occasions. The accused is fond of high-end motorcycles which he uses to commit snatching and robberies. He was been doing all this for his live-in partner to spend extra money and to travel with her,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) Manoj Kumar Meena said.
The officer said several teams were formed to arrest the accused.
During investigation, the CCTV footage of the spot were analysed and identification of the motorcycle of the accused was established as Bajaj Dominar 400, the DCP said.
Further details about the motorcycle were checked and teams were sent to the addresses for raids. While verifying, the data of the owner of one of the said bikes was found not traceable. Later, his criminal record was checked and the owner was found to be involved in several robbery cases registered in Delhi, Meena said.
Police said several raids were conducted at his possible hideouts in Delhi, UP and Haryana.
One of his sisters was a former sarpanch in Bajidpur village of Jhajjar in Haryana. Due to her influence, he managed to run a dairy near police lines of Jhajjar which was one of his favourite hideouts. Later, he surrendered in a court in Ghaziabad in a 2004 case of snatching.
He was brought to Delhi, interrogated and arrested in the present case, the DCP said.
During his interrogation, he confessed to his crime.
He informed that he gave the cash found in the bag to a person to get her daughter admitted to a good school and some of the amount was spent on his enjoyment, police said.
Khari uses new bikes without number plates purchased in the name of his friends and relatives. He mainly targets women walking on roads or travelling in rickshaws having hand bags. He always snatches/robs only bags and after taking out cash, he throws away the bags at nearby secluded places, they added.
The family members of the injured woman took her to Dehradun in Uttarakhand for further treatment where she died on December 21.
The woman was staying at Arunachal Bhawan in Chanakyapuri with her family members. They were going from the Tibetan market towards Vidhan Sabha metro station after having a lunch when the incident occurred.
