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 | BOYS WILL BE BOYS: The kids looted the coin collection
boxes under the phones. Representation pic |
For four months, the Mumbai police believed that a crime syndicate was responsible for the spate of stolen public telephones from booths across the city.
But yesterday, to their surprise they discovered that it was a gang of four schoolboys from Bandra who were, in fact, the ‘crime syndicate’.
The cops had formed a special team to probe the incident and it was on Monday that officers attached to the railway police saw four teens fiddling with the telephone box near CST. The police team closed in and nabbed one of the three suspects, who led them to his accomplices who were arrested yesterday evening. One is absconding.
The students claimed they looted the coin collection boxes under the phones to spend money at video parlours and restaurants.
Explaining the modus operandi, Inspector Shashank Shinde said one of the boys kept vigil on passers-by, while the other three opened the telephone boxes with duplicate keys. The money was emptied into plastic containers. In some cases, the four kids dismantled the telephones. The booty — a mere Rs 3,000 and nine telephones — was recovered. The gang stole the telephone boxes from Bandra, Dadar, Thane, Byculla and CST.
Inspector Shinde said the boys were students of St Andrews School, Anjuman Islam High School and Purshottam High School, near Bandra. The three were sent to judicial custody at the Umerkhadi remand home this afternoon till June 27. | 
