Police on Sunday arrested a 24-year-old man for allegedly robbing a woman doctor of her scooter and valuables near Radhakrishna Multispeciality Hospital at Girinagar nearly two weeks ago.
According to police, Murali, a resident of C K Achukattu, had waylaid Dr Poornima Dinesh around 10.50 pm on November 26 and threatened her with a stone. He fled with her scooter and gold ornaments weighing 60 grams.Murali had reportedly taken to crime to pay off debts incurred from losses in betting on horse racing.
Cop’s Slip-up Delayed Arrest?
While Murali was arrested nearly two weeks after the robbery, a head constable, on patrol in the area, had questioned him moments before the crime.
He reportedly saw Murali moving suspiciously and questioned him. Though Murali gave his mobile phone number, the constable did not note it down and only remembered that the number started with ‘98457’. This information was passed on to Girinagar police after the robbery was reported.
As part of investigations, police took all call records from the nearest mobile phone tower. While nearly one lakh calls were traced to the tower on the night of November 26, about 500 of these numbers started with 98457. The police zeroed in on Murali after manually checking every phone number.