Man held for luring kids to steal phones

Ranchi: A man identified as Om Prakash Gupta has been arrested from the Sukhdeonagar area here for luring slum children to steal mobile phones by allegedly providing them adhesive for intoxication and free internet time to play online games.
A case has been registered against Gupta and he has been forwarded to jail.
Police said Gupta, a scrap dealer operating from the Chuna Bhattha area, was arrested on Thursday during a raid conducted after a tip-off and nine phones were seized from him.
However, none of the children who worked for him could be traced.
On Friday, the officer-in-charge of Sukhdeonagar police station, Mamta Kumari, said, “We received a tip-off that the person was using children either for stealing mobile phones or collecting those mistakenly dropped by the owners on roads.”
Kumari also said Gupta used to recharge the stolen phones and allowed the children to play games on them. After some time, the phones were sold to customers at low prices.
She further said, “He lured the slum children to steal the phones. He mostly operated in areas under the Sukhdeonagar police station.”
Kumari added that a large amount of adhesive has also been seized from Gupta which in all probability was provided to the children for addiction.
Notably, street children have been often found sniffing adhesive for intoxication.