Cellphone thief arrested, 20 handsets recovered

Pune: Twenty cellphones worth Rs2.21 lakh were seized from Riyaz Shaikh (20), a resident of Lohiyanagar, after he was arrested for allegedly stealing handsets from houses.
Sanjay Gaikwad, sub-inspector of the Khadak police station, said they had received many complaints of cellphone theft from the Peth areas. “Most of the cellphones were stolen in the afternoon,” Gaikwad said.
While gathering information about suspects, constable Imran Nadaf received a tip-off that on the alleged involvement of Shaikh in the thefts and that he would be near Ghorpade Garden in Ghorpade Peth on Monday.“We laid a trap and took Shaikh into custody,” Gaikwad said.
Shaikh would observe the targeted houses. After spotting the houses, we would sneak in and make off with the cellphones. Twenty such phones were stolen by the suspect in the past three months. They have been recovered before the suspect could dispose them of.