Videos of cycle theft on WhatsApp – a trend in community policing
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Videos of cycle theft on WhatsApp – a trend in community policing

The CCTV footage clearly showed how a young boy committed the crime in Dwarka.

Videos of cycle theft on WhatsApp – a trend in community policing

Victims of cycle theft in Dwarka are sharing videos of their societies on social media. The purpose for sharing the videos is to alert residents about the goings-on in their midst on the one hand and help community policing in the society on the other.  

On October 7 when bicycle of Lt Col Amit Chopra was stolen from Evergreen Apartments, Sector 7, the entire episode was captured by CCTV cameras. The CCTV footage clearly showed how a young boy committed the crime. The video footage was shared on different WhatAapp groups. 

Similarly, another incident of cycle theft happened at Sector 5 DDA SFS Flats, just behind the market of Sector 5. Here too, a video footage of the incident was shared by general secretary of RWA, Mahesh Gupta. In August, video of an incident of cycle theft that took place on August 30 in Prerna CGHS Sector 10 took people from those societies by surprised. 

Conceding that such incidents did take palce earlier too, the residents felt of late it has become a recurring phenomenon across the city.

Lt Col Chopra, who shifted to Evergreen Apartments about a couple of months back, told CitySpidey, “ I came to know about theft of my bicycle the day after I parked had it. I showed how a boy came and broke the lock with ease and took it away. I have shared the details of the incident along with a CCTV footage with the police. I hope my bicycle would be recovered, but I have not received any information from the police as yet.

 

At DDA SFS Sector 5, general secretary of RWA, Mahesh Gupta, admitted that earlier too some incidents of cycle theft happened in the society. “There was a theft of geared bicycle from our pocket. What surprised us about the theft were age of the thief and his confidence. Secondly, he broke the lock of one bicycle initially and moved ahead riding it in our pocket. But later, he left the stolen bicycle and took away another with gears . I shared that video so that people could be aware of such things and keep a vigil. The bicycle was costly and was purchased only two months before it was stolen.”

People of the societies, from where the bicycles were stolen shared that the modus operandi employed in accomplishing the theft was almost the same. Secretary of Prerna CGHS, Anil Jaggis, said that in August two incidents of cycle theft happened in his society. 

“We reported the cases of cycle theft in our society to the police. We just wanted to share the modus operandi of the culprits, who entered the soceity by jumping the wall though the high wall has barbed wires fencing. You can see a thief jumping from backside of the wall and picking up the bicycle and handing it over to another person who is standing under a tree behind the wall.  Previously, the owner noticed that his bicyle was missing after almost a week since he used and kept it. So, we couldn’t find properly when exactly it happened. But looking at the modus operandi of the incident of August 30, I am sure both the thefts were carried out by the same person or group.”

Meanwhile, the police is working on the cases of cycle theft to nab the culprits behind these and recover the bicycles.