New Delhi, Four men belonging to an infamous gang of wedding thieves were arrested from Delhi-Gurugram border here, police said on Thursday.
Raj Kumar alias Raju, 50, Sumit, 30, Mohit, 19, and Karan, 30, were arrested from near Ghitorni Metro station Wednesday, when they were planning to target a wedding, they said.
According to Additional Commissioner of Police Sanjay Bhatia, the thieves belong to the ‘Band Baja Baraat’ gang, which gets active during the wedding season in Delhi and other parts of the country.
Members of the gang, mostly from Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh, used children or women to get access to weddings in posh localities to make off with bags carrying cash or jewels.
The four arrested Wednesday hail from Kadiya village of Rajgarh, a region notorious for supplying young recruits to organised crime syndicates involved in wedding thefts across India, Deputy Commissioner of Police Vikram Singh said.
“Known for the practice of ‘renting’ family members to criminal gangs, the natives of Kadiya and Gulkhedi villages often enter into agreements known as ‘Anubandh’, wherein families receive financial compensation for sending their members to participate in theft operations,” Singh in a press statement said.
These young recruits are trained to blend in at wedding functions and steal without drawing any attention towards them, he said.
The practice is seen as a form of a social contract, under which poor families are exploited for thefts at weddings, typically targeting the wealthy.
The accused during interrogation revealed that they mostly looked for bags containing jewellery or cash.
On November 12, Sumit and Karan stole cash and valuables from two weddings in outer Delhi’s Alipur.
On November 17, they stole a bag filled with cash and valuables from another wedding at a farmhouse in Maidan Garhi in Chhatarpur area.
While the two entered the venue, Raj Kumar and Mohit waited outside in a private taxi and coordinated with them through mobile phones.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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