Mumbai: With the price of gold soaring, crimes on local trains are increasingly acquiring a yellow tinge. “Criminals who earlier picked pockets and stole mobile phones have switched to chain snatching because of an assured reward,” said a police officer attached to the Dadar railway police station. In 2009, Rs96 lakh worth of gold chains were snatched on Mumbai’s local trains, an increase of 30% over the year before.
Pick-pocketing and mobile theft is no longer a lucrative business for other reasons, according to the officer. Commuters are keeping less cash in wallets, preferring to carry credit debit cards instead. In the case of mobiles, the prices of branded phones are decreasing by the day, and some people now use cheap China-made phones. Besides, branded cell phones have the IMEI number, with which the police can track down the handset, making it difficult to sell off the phone, the officer said.
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