College girl, friend snatch phone in Teynampet to buy drugs, arrested

The accused have been identified as P Raju (24) from Choolaimedu, a tattoo artist, and S Swathi (20) of Karur, who is a final-year Visual Communication student at a private university in Tambaram.

The incident happened around 7.30 am on Monday when the victim, S Prasanna Lipsha (42) who runs a beauty parlour in Teynampet was walking along GN Chetty Road with a friend. A couple on a bike followed them snatched her mobile phone and sped away.

Prasanna then approached the Teynampet police who registered a case and analysed the CCTV footage from the locality. After they managed to get the registration number of the bike from the footage, the police team found out that the two-wheeler was stolen from Velachery two weeks ago. Further investigation led to the arrest of Raju and Swathi on Wednesday.

The CCTV footage shows Raju driving the bike with helmet on and snatching the mobile phone, while Swathi is seen riding pillion without a helmet.

The investigating officer said that the accused became friends last year when Swathi went to get a tattoo at Raju’s parlour. “Both of them are drug addicts and decided to snatch mobile phone to make money to buy drugs. Though Swathi was not directly involved, she was part of the crime. Raju had used the stolen bike to snatch another phone near Kathipara flyover and sold both of them in Burma Bazaar for Rs 5,000. The bike was seized from him,” said a police officer.

The duo has been remanded in judicial custody on Wednesday.