NEW DELHI: Tired of forceful entry into houses and the subsequent fear of getting caught, two thieves decided to adopt a new strategy to commit the crime. They noticed that some effluent families could not attend to the elderly or kept medical attendants to look after the bed-ridden patients or senior citizens. One of the accused made a plan to enter the house as a medical attendant.
The plan was to first find famil i e s who would want an attendant. The accused, identified as Rinku alias Ankit Kumar and Pramod Kumar, both residents of Gautam Budh Nagar, took the internet’s help. “Rinku used to gets the details of the individuals or businesses through Just dial website, who are involved in providing medical attendants to their potential clients and who are looking for medical assistance,” said Special Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav said.
After finding one such family, they used to approach them and enter their house posing as medical attendants. They used to minutely examine the whole house and never showed their face to the family members. They concealed their identity by wearing a mask, citing medical reasons of bacterial infection and safety of the patients. The police received a complaint regarding one of their robberies.
The complainant, a resident of west Delhi, said that they hired one Ankit on October 9 as a medical attendant for their 85-year-old father-in-law. On October 11, her motherin- law found that Ankit had stolen all the jewellery and cash and ran away from their house. Accordingly, the police registered an FIR under relevant sections of law and a team was formed to nab the culprits.
“During analysis of the CCTV footages, it was observed that two persons (one wearing mask and another disguising himself) were seen approaching the residence of the complainant. One of them went inside, whereas, the other one moved ahead to keep a watch,” the Special CP said. The police then printed and circulated the photographs of the accused and the duo was identified.
A raid was conducted and both were arrested. The accused Rinku alias Ankit Kumar earlier worked with some doctor at his native place and later came in contact with one Hemant (cousin brother), who was involved in stealing goods in the garb of medical attendants. After the arrest of Hemant, Rinku started working separately.
The second accused Pramod Kumar earned his livelihood by running an eatery where he met both Rinku and Hemant and they both convinced him to be a part of their illegal activities and making profits out of it with low risk.
Concealing identify by wearing mask To conceal his identity, the accused would disguise himself and wear a mask while at the victims’ homes citing medical reasons such as the spread of bacterial infection and maintaining the safety of the patients. When Rinku used to steal valuables, his friend Pramod used to keep vigil outside.
Accused used Justdial to look for potential victims During interrogation, Rinku, an accused disclosed that they used to retrieve the details of their potential victims through Justdial. They used to target people looking for nurses for their elderly parents or ailing family members, the police said.
