Accused in mass mobile theft taken for evidence collection

The Mulavukad police on Saturday (October 26) took the four accused in the alleged mass theft of mobile phones at the concert of an international artiste at Bolgatty to multiple locations for evidence collection.

The police had received the custody of the accused Atiq Ur Rahman and Waseem Ahammed – arrested from Delhi – and Sunny Bhola Yadav and Shyam Baranwal – arrested from Mumbai. They were taken to two tourist homes where they had stayed and to the Bolgatty Palace where the concert was held on October 6.

“Now the focus will be on their detailed interrogation based on their call data records and the contacts on their phones. We will have to return one pair of the accused on October 30 and the other the following day,” said the police sources. The police may interrogate them together and separately to elicit contradictory and self-implicating information.

All the four accused were history-sheeters. The police are also in the lookout for the remaining four accused – two each belonging to the Delhi and Mumbai rackets, respectively. The history-sheeters from Mumbai reportedly travelled to and from Kochi by flight, while those from Delhi made the round trip by train. This was the first large-scale mobile phone theft from a single venue in Kerala. It was still being verified whether more gangs were involved in what police perceive as a well-planned operation.

The police have recovered a total of 24 mobile phones—20 from Delhi and four from Mumbai. Among these, seven were identified as belonging to individuals who lost their phones during the concert. However, the owners will need to retrieve the phones through the court. Approximately 39 phones, including 21 iPhones, were stolen primarily from the VIP and fan zones at the concert.

Twenty phones were stolen in similar fashion during the concert of the same artiste in Bengaluru before the tour reached Kochi on October 6. The investigation teams from Kochi city police had inspected a slew of shops both in Delhi and Mumbai.

Published - October 26, 2024 09:30 pm IST