Cellphone thieves target ‘mobile’ talkers

It’s time you get more careful while walking on roads and talking over your mobile phone. A gang of mobile phone snatchers are on the prowl in the city for the last couple of days. The gang targets inattentive chatters irrespective of the quality or worth of their mobile phone.  

In the last few days the city witnessed as many as three incidents of mobile snatching in posh localities like Ellisbridge, Vastrapur and Satellite. The police, however, suspect there were many other similar occurrences which did not get registered for lack of valid documents for the mobile phones.

The gang is believed to be in action for the last couple of days, but the police are yet to acquire the exact details of its operation. A senior cop told DNA that there are no specifics about the gang, and that they are chain snatchers, who, as per their convenience, switch to mobile snatching every now and then.

The cop also said that the police are on the lookout and will nab them very soon. A source in the police said, “The gang is always in search of a person who is not very watchful and is using mobile phone near the footpath.”

The snatchers target in such a way that it becomes easier for them to escape from the spot immediately after committing the theft. Although the modus operandi of the gang matches that of the chain snatching gangs rampant in the city, the targets are different.
Sunil Patel, a victim, told DNA that his mobile phone was snatched from near Vijay crossroads, but he didn’t lodge a complaint because he did not have the bill of his mobile phone.