Delhi Police nabs Devender Singh alias Bunty who inspired Bollywood

New Delhi: Delhi Police has arrested Devender Singh alias Bunty, a notorious thief who was involved in around 500 cases of theft across the country and inspired a Bollywood flick, officials said on Friday.

Nicknamed "super thief", 53-year-old Singh was nabbed from Uttar Pradesh in connection with two recently executed thefts in the national capital, they said.

Singh started committing thefts since the age of 14 years. He was previously involved in more than 250 cases of theft in Delhi alone, they said.

Singh gained fame after he participated in the popular reality show 'Big Boss' in 2010 but was evicted after he misbehave with host Salman Khan. He also inspired Bollywood movie 'Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!', police said.

The arrest was made after a case was registered based on the complaint of a GK-II resident regarding theft of three expensive mobile phones, purse, two laptops, branded shoes, wrist watch and Baleno car on the intervening night of April 12-13, police said.

On the same day, a second theft was reported by another resident of GK-II, they added.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Chandhan Choudhary said CCTV camera footage of the area and the place of incident revealed that a middle aged suspect wearing a cap was involved in both the incidents.

"The team started looked at the CCTV footage of the suspect and followed the route of the stolen car which revealed that it was going towards Noida via Alaknanda in CR Park," the official said.  The registration number of the car was also ascertained through the footage, police said.

"During the course of investigation, police teams of CR Park followed the footage and tracked the car till Kalindi Kunj. Meanwhile, the team checked the locations of stolen mobile phones and found one of them switched on following which its location was traced near Agra. The team instantly moved towards the location which was about 150 KM away from them," she said.

The fastag of the stolen mobile phone was kept on surveillance. Fastag deductions at different toll booths were monitored, police said.

The team spotted the stolen car on the highway near Etawah in UP. The team later managed to intercept the car at a toll booth in the UP's Kanpur Dehat but the accused tried to escape. However, the glass window of the car was broken and the accused was apprehended, she added.

Stolen items, including three mobile phones, two laptops, five LED TVs with set top boxes, iron, printer and other ID Cards and purse of the complainants were also recovered from the the car, police said.

The accused was arrested and the case property was seized, the DCP said.