One accused who robbed PM Modi's niece in Delhi arrested

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police have arrested a 20-year-old man suspected to be involved in snatching the purse of PM Narendra Modi's niece Damayantiben Modi near Civil Lines. The man identified as Gaurav was tracked down from Sonepat and Damayantiben's belongings have being recovered from him. The search is on to nab the second suspect.

"A snatching case was registered yesterday and we have arrested a 21-yr-old, Gaurav alias Nonu in connection with the case from Sonepat.The other accused, Badal, will soon be nabbed. We have recovered snatched items and also the two-wheeler used in snatching," said Monika Bhardwaj, DCP North Delhi.

Damayantiben was getting off an auto-rickshaw near a guesthouse of Delhi Gujarati Samaj on Saturday morning when the criminals struck. They fled with her bag which contained Rs 56,000 in cash, two mobile phones, her family’s flight tickets for Ahmedabad and her ID cards.
Damayantiben, her husband,Vikas, and their two children had reached the Old Delhi railway station from Amritsar around 7am and were to leave for Ahmedabad on an afternoon flight. They had booked a room at the guesthouse. The auto-rickshaw had dropped the family outside the guesthouse around 7.15am.
She said that Vikas and the children were helping with the luggage and she was paying the fare to the auto driver when she was caught unawares. In her statement, she said that two youths suddenly drove towards them from the Raj Niwas side in the wrong carriageway at a high speed and slowed down near the auto-rickshaw. The pillion rider bent forward and snatched her bag from the seat.
“They zipped past before I could even react. They seemed to be in their teens. I do not recall whether they were wearing a helmet but the pillion rider was lanky while the guy driving the bike was short,” she told TOI.
As per conservative estimates by Delhi Police, at September end around 4,762 incidents of snatching were reported out of which most were reported in last four months.