5 women held for stealing valuables in Lajpat Nagar

Five women were arrested for allegedly stealing valuables from the bags of people in southeast Delhi's Lajpat Nagar area, police said on Tuesday.

According to a complaint by a woman, she saw a woman took out her small purse from her handbag near a shop on Sunday evening and passed over to another woman, a senior officer said.

When she tried to catch second woman, the suspect immediately passed the small purse to their third woman and then tried to run away. The woman raised an alarm and the accused were arrested from the spot, police said.

In other incident, another complainant reported that on the same day, when she and her sister were waiting for an auto, they noticed two women following them for a quite some time, the police said.

One of them stole her small pouch from her handbag, immediately gave it to the other woman and tried to run away, but were arrested by the patrolling staff, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Chinmoy Biswal said.

The accused have been identified as Nazmeen (30), Sayra (37), Rukhsar (24), Savitri (30) and Joshni (20), the police said.

During interrogation, it was revealed that they travelled in a group of three-five women to commit their crime, the police said.