3 Afghan nationals arrested for stealing Kashmiri carpets

Three Afghan nationals have been arrested for allegedly stealing 81 expensive carpets worth crores of rupees from a showroom in southeast Delhi's Lajpat Nagar area.
The accused were identified as Atiqullah (43), Shal Mohammad (33) and Zabihullah (29), all residents of Afghanistan.
Police have recovered 39 of the 81 stolen carpets and search was on for the remaining.
"They were planning to ship them to United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Afghanistan for disposal," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast) Mandeep Randhawa.
The incident took place on the intervening night of 7 and 8 April at Lajpat Nagar in which 81 Kashmiri carpets worth crores of rupees were stolen.

During investigation, police team examined other carpet dealers in the locality and it was revealed that couple of days prior to the incident some Afghan nationals had come to the shop of complainant on the pretext of selling some carpets and their activities were suspicious.

The CCTV footage in the area were examined and the team zeroed in on the above three persons.
Several raids were conducted at suspected hideouts in Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai and Look out Notices of the suspects were also issued and an alert too was sent to all the airports.
Besides, technical surveillance was also mounted and local intelligence was gathered too, police said.

"After painstaking efforts, the above three were nabbed from the area of Hauz Rani, Delhi and subjected to sustained interrogation they confessed about their involvement and at their instance, 39 carpets were recovered from their possession.
"Raids are being conducted to recover the remaining carpets as also to apprehend the remaining accused," said Randhawa.
According to police, the trio is known to each other and had come to India on tourist VISA in March 2015.