India News -DU girl and gang

Delhi Univeristy Girl and her gang of robbers.

A day after the Ghaziabad Police busted a gang of robbers run allegedly by a Delhi University (DU) girl and seized jewellery worth Rs 2.25 crore from them, it emerged on Saturday that members of the inter-state gang took flights to various cities where they broke into houses.

Jewellery and cellphones seized from the gang

The police seized several flight tickets from them. The girl, Mansi Bhatt, was pursuing her degree through correspondence from DU, they said. Seven persons, including the girl, were on Friday arrested for a spate of break- ins in the trans-Hindon colonies of Ghaziabad after three days of raids in Mumbai.

The police identified the arrested men as Vikram Singh, Gyan Chand, Mukesh, Amit, Shailendra and Ravi Srivastava. SSP Raghubir Lal said: "They targeted several houses in Indirapuram, Vasundhara and Vaishali. The gang later expanded its activities to Jaipur and Udaipur in Rajasthan, Vadodara and Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Mumbai." The police said the gang members first recced their targets as courier boys.

They would then break into the houses. The accused, aged between 20 and 24 years, used the girl as a cover to enter the houses.

The gang members had bought a WagonR car and even stolen a Honda City, which they used as getaway vehicles. Flush with stolen cash, they led a lavish lifestyle, living in five-star hotels and, apparently, travelling by air, the police said.

The girl, however, denied her involvement in the gang's activities. She told mediapersons that she had only gone to meet her friend, Vikram Singh, at a hotel in Mumbai.

While she had gone to the hotel in Juhu to meet him, the police raided the place and nabbed Vikram.

"I had no idea that Vikram was involved in thefts or about any such gang. I had only gone to see my friend," Mansi, a resident of Vaishali, said.

The other gang members were returning from Mumbai, unaware that their use of a stolen cellphone had made it easy for the police to track them. They were intercepted at the Uttar Pradesh border.

Hailing from Pauri district in Uttarakhand, the girl is a close friend of Vikram, the police claimed. She joined the gang a year ago, they said.

The gang carried out at least 18 big burglaries in upmarket localities of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, the police added. The gang had left for Mumbai on September 8 and was operating in Mumbai.

The gang had recently broke into a house in Vasundhara and was using a stolen mobile phone. The police had been tracking these calls and learnt about their recent activities and travel plans to Ghaziabad. (india today)