NEW DELHI: A class 9 student in southwest Delhi’s Najafgarh area has been detained for allegedly stealing his mother’s gold to finance his female friend’s birthday celebration and purchase an iPhone for her, police said on Wednesday.
The incident came to light when the boy’s mother lodged an FIR reporting house theft after which a police investigation revealed the teenager as the culprit.
The accused sold his mother’s gold jewelry to two different goldsmiths in the Kakrola area and used the money to procure the high-end phone for the girl with whom he was reportedly in a relationship.
Police arrested a 40-year-old goldsmith, Kamal Verma and recovered a gold ring and earring.
“On August 3, an incident of house theft was reported by a woman in which she reported the theft of two gold chains, one pair of gold earrings, and one gold ring from her house on August 2, by an unknown person between 8 am to 3 pm,” stated Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Ankit Singh.
Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered and an investigation commenced. CCTV footage from the crime scene showed no suspicious activity around the complainant’s house at the time of the incident.
Further neighborhood investigation yielded no witnesses to any suspicious activities either.
Ruling out the involvement of outsiders the investigation team then focused on the complainant’s family members and discovered that her son had been missing since the burglary.
Gathering information from his school friends the team learned that he had purchased a new iPhone worth Rs 50,000. Several raids were conducted at his known hideouts in Dharampura, Kakrola and Najafgarh but each time the juvenile managed to escape.
A tip-off suggested that the juvenile would return home around 6 pm, leading to a police trap being set near the house on Tuesday.
At around 6:15 pm, the juvenile was intercepted near his residence. Sensing the police trap he attempted to evade but was nabbed.
During the search, an Apple mobile phone was found in his possession. Initially, the boy denied his involvement.
However, upon further questioning he confessed to selling the stolen gold to two goldsmiths.
The juvenile revealed revealed that his father had died due to illness. He also admitted to having little interest in studies often scoring average marks.
The boy’s friends informed the police about his relationship with a girl in the same class.
According to the juvenile, he initially asked his mother for money to make a grand impression on his girlfriend’s birthday but she declined due to limited resources, advising him to focus on his studies instead.
Feeling upset over the denial, he decided to steal from his house.
“In order to make a stunning impression over his girlfriend on her birthday, he approached his mother to give him money but due to limited resources, she denied and advised him to concentrate on his studies.
Angered over the denial, he decided to steal money from his house,” added the DCP, mentioning that further investigation into the matter is ongoing.
Inputs from TOI
