The Hindu : New Delhi News : Around the City

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 04, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Around the City

SIM card leads to unexpected arrest

New Delhi: Delhi Police may not have been able to crack the serial blasts case yet, but a mobile phone SIM card found at the site of one of the explosions has yielded an unexpected bonus for them by helping to solve a murder case of Bihar.

The BSNL SIM card with a Patna phone number had been found at the Paharganj blast site on Saturday, a senior police official said on Thursday.

Police, who thought it might yield some vital leads into the blasts, immediately swung into action and managed to trace the owner Arvind Pandey to a city hospital where he was undergoing treatment for burns.

On interrogation, he admitted that he was wanted in connection with a murder case registered in Patna and was hiding in a hotel in Paharganj to evade arrest.

He had gone to the site of the blast on the fateful evening and had been injured in the explosion. His mobile phone had fallen from his pocket in the melee.

Sensitisation drive

NEW DELHI: The staff of the Delhi Transport Corporation would soon be sensitised on detection of explosives and on keeping a watch on the activities of suspicious passengers through a programme to be undertaken by the Delhi Government in association with the Delhi police.

The Delhi Transport Minister, Haroon Yusuf, said on Thursday that the programme has been planned as part of precautionary measures to prevent any bomb explosions on buses and its importance can be gauged from the fact that the prompt action by the alert conductor and driver of a DTC bus, who threw a bomb out of a DTC bus, prevented a major tragedy at Govindpuri on October 29.

Covering around 30,000 drivers and conductors, the programme would see the direct participation of Delhi police personnel in the training of the staff members. Incidentally, two years ago also the Transport Department had undertaken a similar programme following a blast near IIT.

Boy rescued

NEW DELHI: A four-year-old boy who was kidnapped for a ransom of Rs. 1 lakh from near his Keshav Puram residence in North-West Delhi on Diwali day was rescued from an Uttar Pradesh village on Thursday. His domestic help has been arrested in this connection.

On November 1, the police received a call from Pramod Goel saying that his son, Sanskar, had gone missing. He had gone out along with his domestic help, Sher Mohammad. The next day, Pramod received a call on his mobile phone, in which the kidnapper demanded Rs. 1 lakh for releasing Sanskar. The call was traced to a public booth at Amroha in U.P.

Subsequently, a team was sent there along with Pramod, who was to pay the ransom amount the same day around 5-30 p.m. However, no one turned up to receive the money. On Thursday, Pramod again received a call in which the caller directed him to bring the money at Masipi village near Kunderki. The police raided the PCO from where the call had been made and arrested Sher Mohammad. At his instance, the child was rescued from a Masipi village house.

Auto-lifters arrested

NEW DELHI: Five alleged auto-lifters were arrested from different parts of North-West Delhi on Wednesday. At their instance, the police impounded three stolen two-wheelers. The accused have been identified as Rajender Singh Rana, Ram Sharan, Vinod Kumar, Sanjay and Vikas.

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