Ludhiana: High-tech analysis and a footwear receipt led Khanna police to four suspects in cases where serial snatchers were targeting elderly women.Police have dismantled an organised street-crime syndicate, arresting four suspects—including two brothers operating a local jewellery business —and recovering stolen gold earrings alongside a motorcycle lacking registration-number plates.Street snatching and petty property crimes have remained a persistent operational challenge for law enforcement across Punjab’s urban centres. Perpetrators typically deploy high-speed motorcycles fitted with altered or missing registration plates, targeting vulnerable pedestrians in high-traffic corridors before disappearing into residential alleys—often fencing the stolen precious metals to unverified local traders for quick cash.The investigative breakthrough followed an Aug 22 incident in which Sarbjeet Kaur of Guru Ram Dass Nagar was targeted while walking to a gurdwara on Peer Khana Road around 5.10pm. A motorcycle-borne assailant snatched her gold earring before speeding off. Police registered a formal case the following day and quickly identified a second, nearly identical snatching executed nearby around 5pm the same afternoon.Investigating teams gathered extensive footage from surrounding surveillance networks, applying artificial intelligence image-enhancement tools to reconstruct the perpetrator’s trail. Khanna SSP Darpan Ahluwalia said a decisive lead emerged when high-resolution analysis identified a distinct brand logo on a plastic shopping bag hanging from the getaway motorcycle’s handlebars.Tracing the brand to a footwear showroom in Subhash Bazaar, investigators reviewed interior CCTV records. The footage captured the primary suspect visiting the store shortly after the snatchings to buy boots and perfume —having allegedly sold the stolen gold to a local buyer moments earlier to fund the shopping spree.Though the suspect wore a face mask and rode a numberless vehicle, the retail footage allowed police to map his physical movements and establish his identity.Police arrested the primary suspect, Amandeep Singh, also known as Babbu, of Iklaha village, on Aug 25, seizing the unregistered motorcycle used in the offences. Under interrogation, he implicated an accomplice, Deepak Bali of Balmiki Mohalla on Peer Khana Road, who was taken into custody shortly after.Further questioning revealed the duo had fenced the stolen items to Kapil Kumar and his brother Japinder Kumar, operators of a jewelry shop in Khanna. Police subsequently arrested both business owners and recovered two stolen gold earrings from their possession.Police records confirm that both Amandeep Singh and Bali are repeat offenders with multiple prior criminal cases registered against them across police stations in Khanna and Ludhiana.
