Two college girls were recently arrested for stealing at least 38 mobile phones in the women’s compartments of local trains on Western Railway over the past two months.

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Investigators from the railway crime branch said the duo —Twinkle Soni (20) and Tinal Parmar (19)—allegedly spent much of the sale proceeds on one Hrishi Singh whom they were both allegedly dating. Railway cops also arrested one Rahul Rajpurohit (28) who bought the phones worth over Rs 3 lakh from them.

Purushottam Karad, DCP (Western Railway), formed a team after several cases of phone thefts were registered at Borivli station and most of the incidents occurred between Borivli and Santacruz stations. “Preliminary investigations have led us to believe that the two college girls are in love with the wanted accused Singh. They claimed to have stolen the phones for fast money and spent it on Singh,” said Karad.

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After going through the complaints, a few women cops in plainclothes boarded a train at Kandivli on May 30 to catch them. “Around 1pm, cops caught Soni red-handed while she was trying to pinch a phone from a commuter’s bag. Her arrest helped us nab Parmar and the person who bought the phones from their boyfriend. They are wanted in at least seven cases.”

Soni said she was an architecture student and Parmar in first-year degree college. Both would allegedly meet Singh in the evenings and he would help them sell the pieces.

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“The girls used to steal the phones on trains while on their way to their respective colleges. At least nine phones were recovered from Soni’s bag. A total of 38 phones and 30 memory cards have been recovered from the arrested accused,” said inestigators. The accused have been remanded to police custody till June 8.