Google search helps police nab 'Super Burglar'

A Google search helped the city police to arrest a burglar, dubbed "Super Burglar" by them, who had committed thefts at the houses of high profile people including a former MP and several government officials here, police said on Monday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Ishwar Singh said Siddharth Mehrotra was arrested in Pitampura area of west Delhi, where he lived, on August 15 and around 18 cases have been solved with the arrest.

The 27-year-old, who led a lavish lifestyle, owned a Chevrolet Cruze car, a sports bike worth Rs 8 lakh and vacationed in exotic places, police said. He is married with an eight-year-old son.

Police also arrested Jitender Yadav, 29, who used to buy stolen articles from Mehrotra and an accomplice, Anurag Singh, 24, who had accompanied Mehrotra multiple times.

According to police, Mehrotra had been committing burglaries in Vasant Kunj area of south Delhi for the past eight months.

"Though we had CCTV footage of many of the burglaries, we were not able to identify him," Singh said.

Police then turned to Google for help and after 1000-odd searches, a keyword "officer's son arrested" led them to an old media report of the accused being arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police in Noida.

"He used to come well dressed in a Chevrolet Cruze car for all his burglaries. This triggered our officers' thought process and they came up with the search keyword 'officer's son arrested' and it worked," Singh said.

Once his name was known, the police looked for his profile on Facebook and found out the registration number of a car he used while vacationing in a hill station which led to his arrest.

Police said once the "Super Burglar" spotted a house with no lights turned on, he would ring the doorbell to confirm that there was indeed no one in the house.

"He then used a crow bar to break grills of the window to break into the house," Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Chinmoy Biswal said.

The Cruze car, a 42-inch TV, a laptop, a Sony Play Station and a Tissot watch were among the many articles recovered from him.

During interrogation, Mehrotra said he "selected only politicians, bureaucrats and officers", police said.

--IANS

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