Police arrest brother and sister for waylaying pedestrians while on a bike; duo, who come from a broken family, say they had a debt to returnu00a0

A ruthless life drove Ruth and Rudolf to robbery. That is the sense one gets listening to their story after the Juhu police arrested Rudolf David Gay (22) and his sister Ruth (25) for raiding passers-by from a raing bike, reportedly 27 successful times in the past three months. The siblings with the alliterating names were like any other brother-sister duo until their parents separated when they were in school. The family's finances also took a hit. Thus marooned and moneyless, they dropped out. "Our parents did not have the money to send us to school," they later told cops while in custody. "So we stopped going."

Crime time


They were eking out a living until a year back, when they were both employed at a call centre. But then, in December last year, occurred the incident they say drove them to snatching bags and jewellery from pedestrians. Ruth was baking a Christmas cake when she got severely burnt. She needed medical care, expensive treatment. But there wasn't the money. They approached a kin to borrow some, and since then were under a Rs 1 lakh debt they had all intentions to repay, they told cops.

But they were out of a job by now. Clearing the obligation must have been paramount. For why else would they rally around the only resource they had at their disposal, Rudolf's bike, to go on a three-month chain-snatching spree, apparently to clear the debt. Rudolf, racing the Pulsar, and his sister, riding pillion, would zip through the streets in the western suburbs, groping at the belongings of passers-by, too quick to be caught or seen to recognised.

Preliminary investigations by the police reveal that starting mid-February, their escapades totted up to 27 instances of chain-snatching and robbing pedestrians, mostly in the western region of the city.u00a0 They would have pressed on with their desperado-like life on the run but for a tip-off. Someone informed the police about the duo. Probes led cops at their doorstep last weekend. Ruth was picked up from a shared accommodation in Kandivli on Saturday, Rudolf from his at Marol on Sunday. In police custody, their statements relayed this story.
They never did say if they ever got around to returning the loaned money. Or, what they did with their exploits, or if the burn marks receded. Further probe is on.u00a0u00a0