UP criminals inspired by films and TV shows

Amit Pathak, arrested this Monday by the Lucknow police for having stolen several luxury cars had been giving the local police sleepless nights since several months. After a vigil of several days, Pathak was eventually nabbed by the police. On being asked about his modus operendi, Pathak's reply flummoxed the cops. According to Pathak, the Hollywood film Gone in 60 Seconds became his inspiration to steal cars.While in the film actor Nicholas Cage steals 50 cars in one night to save his brother's life, Pathak used the same methods employed by Cage in the film to make some quick bucks by stealing cars and selling them across the country .
But seems like Pathak is not the only one inspired by reel-life crimes. Several films and serials have served an inspiration and given ideas to people to replicate the crimes in real life, not always with success.
REALITY TV?The popular TV show 'Savdhaan India' inspired college student Shaan Waris Siddiqui, son of a Lucknow businessman, to fake his own kidnapping in February , earlier this year. The youngster, wanting to party in Goa on Valentine's Day with his girlfriend and other pals, thought of staging his own kidnapping and demanded a ransom of 1 crore from his father. “The youngster along with his girlfriend and three other friends had wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day in Goa, but not having enough cash they hatched this plan of a fake kidnapping. Shaan's friend would call up his father for the ransom, which was finally settled at Rs 60 lakhs. The kids told us later that they had watched one particular episode of 'Savdhaan India' to learn about ways to dodge the police in such cases. The show had shown one episode where a person had faked his own kidnapping," the police was quoted as saying at the time of Shaan's arrest.But the youngsters forgot that even in the show, in the end, the perpetrators were nabbed by the police, and that they weren't following a fool-proof plan.
Twenty-year-old Lucknowite Himanshu Verma also got inspired by the show 'Crime Patrol' to fake his own kidnapping in March this year. A small time event manager Himanshu had organised a party on Valentine's Day this year which didn't turn out to be as successful as he had planned. “He had organized an event on Valentine's Day at a lawn near Chinhat area of the city . Unfortunately the event failed to attract visitors. He had borrowed `50,000 from his friends for his work, promising to pay back the amount after the event. But he could not earn anything from the event," shares Kunwar Raghvendra Pratap Singh, incharge, Women's Power Line 1090. After the event, when friends kept demanding the money, he thought of staging his own kidnapping. An episode of the show 'Crime Patrol' was enacted in real life by another college student in the city last year, who taking inspiration from the show, made a few obscene videos and photographs of his girlfriend.The boy then blackmailed the girl into having physical relationships with his friends also or else he would upload her pictures on the internet. The girls initially complied with the boy's wishes but then reported the matter to 1090. “Based on the girl's complaint, we apprehended the boy who later revealed to us that an episode of 'Crime Patrol' had given him the idea on how to commit the crime," informs Kunwar Raghavendra Pratap Singh.
Talking about the extent of the influence of television and films on youngsters, Raghavendra narrates another incident in which a college student, inspired by an episode of Sansani, another crime show on TV , made girlfriends and then blackmailed them into giving him money .
“There was another bizarre case we dealt with recently which involved a 16 year old boy who harassed his mausi (maternal aunt)," Rahgavendra tells us, “The boy's mother had died when he was very young and he was looked after by his mausi who would often complain about the kid to his father. The kid would resent being scolded and beaten by his father at the behest of his mausi so he hatched a plan to harass her to the extent that she would commit suicide." This case, which came to light last year, had the boy take the police on a wild goose chase before he could be nabbed. “While in custody we asked him how he had got the idea to harass his aunt and he said he had watched this English film in which a man starts harassing a girl on telephone and in the end she commits suicide. So the boy had thought his aunt would also kill herself."
FILMY LESSONS
Citing one more example of how movies can influence a child to commit crimes, cops narrated another case from Meerut in which a 15-year-old was kidnapped by his classmates. The students then called up the boy's father and asked for `50,000 in ransom, and then brutally murdered the victim. During investigations, the accused boy revealed that he was so impressed with actor Vivek Oberoi's character in the film Shootout At Lokhandwala and the powers of a hoodlum possessed that he was `inspired' to commit a similar crime. The young boy had the movie stored on his mobile and would watch it every day , trying to imitate Oberoi's mannerisms,“ informs Raghavendra.
GOING THE HOLLYWOOD WAY
In December 2012, Kanpur was rocked by the news of four students carrying out a bank robbery inspired by the Hollywood film Ocean's 11. Police arrested four people, including two students, who had carried out a sophisticated robbery inspired by the film at a bank in Kanpur. But luckily they were caught in time and most of the stolen `23 lakh was recovered from them. The then Senior Superintendent of Police of Kanpur Yashasvi Yadav had told media that the the three persons ar rested by the police -Anshul, Shailendra and Jitendra had stunned the cops with their modus operandi and the use of technology and social networking sites in the crime. “The robbers had put tape on their fingers so as not to leave any fin ger prints, they were wearing hel mets and goggles to prevent identifi cation and talked to each other on ear phones. Soon after the bank robbery , they also broke and threw away their SIM cards and went their own separate ways. During interrogation the trio told cops that they had taken inspiration from the Hollywood film Ocean's 11, a film on robberies in Las Vegas casinos to commit the crime.“
DHOOMMACHANE AAYE HAIN
Hindi film series Dhoom also inspired scores of crimes committed in India. Bank heists in Kerala and Haryana, chain snatchings in Mumbai and Delhi were among a few reported. But closer home, in Sahibabad, district Ghaziabad, a gang of robbers looted the Muthoot Finance Limited's Sahibabad office in October 2010. Upon interrogations, the six confessed that it was the finance company's advertisement and the Hrithik Roshan starrer Dhoom 2.
According to the police, the accused had been planning the robbery since months.They were particularly inspired by the company's ad which promised the provision of a loan against gold jewellery in just five minutes. These armed men had barged into the cabin of the Muthoot Finance firm manager and made off with cash and jewellery amounting to over `50 lakh.
The methods employed by them were picked up from the Bollywood film in which Roshan's onscreen character used to pull off heists in just five minutes. “The six took ten minutes more to loot the finance firm,“ a police officer who had been conducting the investigation at that, was reported as saying.
The accused persons were Nijam, Seetu, Joginder, Anil, Sonu Tyagi and Kuldeep Dhaamal, the police said that the latter two were the main conspirators. While Tyagi is an undergraduate in Arts, Dhaamal had completed a course in marine engineering from an institution at Chennai.
While Tyagi had reportedly carried out the heist out of necessity , the others wanted the money to support their lavish lifestyles. “Sonu had suffered losses in the property business, which made him plan the heist. Kuldeep and the others, all residents of Bhagpat, needed the money for their foreign girlfriends, with whom they used to chat,“ the senior police officer added.
REVENGE STORY
Teenage crushes, failed love affairs, or the desire for all things good in life have been a few of the causes kids as young as 14 years old to resort to filmy style of crime. “ A 16 year old boy murdered a girl for unrequited love in Meerut. When the child was brought to us, we asked him why he had done this and he said that he had been inspired by the film Raanjhanaa to stalk the girl and woo her with his love,“ informs Naresh Paras, regional co-ordinator Western UP , Quality Institutional Care and Alternative For Children. “Nearly every daywe deal with children who have committed crimes after seeing films and TV shows,“ says he. “This particular boy had fallen in love with his classmate and when she refused him, he thought of taking revenge.So he bought a knife and hid behind a police chowki and waited for the girl to pass by to stab her to death. But the girl instead took another route and went to the market to get mehndi applied on her hand. Later, the boy stabbed her to death. He told the police that if he couldn't have her, no one else could either,“ Paras tells us.
In another case, Paras says a 17 year old boy had been accused of committing 18 murders. “His sister was getting married and he said he wanted to be there for the wedding. So, like Amitabh Bachchan in films, he called an accomplice, the two then put a revolver to the incharge's head and locked him up and escaped. He came back after a few days when the wedding was over,“ informs Paras.
KANPUR'S OWN BUNTY AUR BABLI
The Yash Chopra film Bunty Aur Babli impressed the audience as much as con artistes. Way back in 2005 when the film released, police had been chasing a brother-sister duo nicknamed Bunty and Babli for conning people of lakhs of rupees across India. The siblings Kancha and Gappu belonging to the Haburas (a criminal tribe) of Kanpur had earned notoriety by indulging in acts of duping lakhs of rupees from high profiled victims. After receiving multiple complaints the police was on the lookout for the duo who managed to give the police the slip but their accomplice Amarjeet was caught who informed the police that the duo targeted rich businessmen withdrawing huge amounts from their bank accounts and duped them on pretext of doubling or tripling the amounts under various schemes. He also informed the police that Kancha and Gappu preferred to travel by air and stay in five star luxury hotels to project an impressive life style.
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