Gangtok district police have arrested a person of the “shutter-cutter” gang based out of Ghorasahan in East Champaran district of Bihar in connection with a robbery at a mobile phone store in Sikkim’s capital on June 6 and recovered six handsets from him.

Vijay Kumar was arrested on July 1 and brought to Gangtok on July 10. He is held in police custody.

Along with Kumar, the police had also arrested another person, Mohammad Irfan Alam, but he was taken into custody by the Bihar police since he had an attempt to murder case registered against him in the state.

Tenzing Loden Lepcha, the superintendent of police of Gangtok district, said six members of the shutter-cutter gang were involved in the Gangtok robbery incident.

“We will send a second team to Bihar and try and arrest the remaining four,” he said, adding that Alam, too, would be brought to Sikkim later by producing “production warrant”.

The six of them had gone to Gangtok posing as tourists on June 4 and after carrying out a reconnaissance of the mobile store located near Hungry Jack Hotel just below M.G. Marg, they had carried out the robbery in the wee hours of June 6.

“They had broken the shutter and stolen 94 mobile phones valued at about Rs 21-22 lakh. We had registered a case under Sections 457 (house-breaking by night to commit crime) and 380 (theft in dwelling house) of the IPC,” said Lepcha.

Following investigation, a five-member police team of Sikkim Police had gone to Ghorasahan where they found that they were part of about 250-member gang who was given the sobriquet “shutter-cutter” that was involved in similar crimes in different parts of the country.

“More than 100 cases have been registered against this gang all across India…Since East Champaran district is close to Nepal, what this gang usually does is cross over to Nepal to sell the phones” said Lepcha.