"Athithi Devo Bhawa (Guest is God)" continues...

The gangsters explained to them that by
adopting this method the high customs duty levied by the Indian government on export of jewellery could be evaded. Once the tourists reached home, they could sell the exported material at huge profits and make big money. If the tourists declined, as most did, they would be detained, forcibly deprived of their passports, foreign exchange, credit cards and subjected to extortion in various guises. Some of the girl tourists were molested and even raped. In Jaipur, the police commonly refer to criminals adopting this modus operandi as the ‘Lapka Gang’. ‘Lapka’ is derived from the Hindi word ‘Lapakna’ which means ‘grabbing’ alluding to the process of latching on to tourists by miscreants of the gang.

The contents of these complaints made my blood boil. I asked DIG B.K. Sharma to have the documents examined and initiate preliminary fieldwork in the matter. BK
Sharma deputed Inspector Ajay Bassi to work on call printouts and telephone numbers sent by the New Scotland Yard and DSP Shukla to do the fieldwork. After painstaking analysis, Inspector Bassi zeroed in on two mobile numbers that had called most victims during their stay in India. Further enquiry showed these numbers to be no longer in use. However, the same handsets (located by their unique IMEI –International Mobile Equipment Identification Numbers) were still in use with new SIM cards.

Based on phone data of the two new numbers, one Liyaqat Ali a.k.a. Mike a.k.a. Ali was traced. Liyaqat was a habitual criminal of Jaipur involved in several cases where his victims had been tourists. He was a History-Sheeter (a police term for persons to be kept under surveillance) of Police Station Jalupura, Jaipur. DSP VK Shukla collected Liyaqat Ali’s dossier,, police records on his associates and related material on all miscreants using similar modus operandi in Jaipur and Delhi who had come to the adverse notice of the police.

To be continued...