Our law enforcement friends in Mumbai do some creative police work. Methods that would never be tolerated in the U.S.

Okay, so they knew that a gang of pickpockets was targeting people on Marine Drive, the famous beach road. At 3 a.m. a week ago Thursday, a uniformed cop stood watching with a birds-eye view from a pedestrian overpass. Constable Bhaidas Chavana, the police officer, had his eye on a 16-year-old boy sitting beside a sleeping man.

Up on the overpass, Constable Chavan stopped a passerby who happened to be a photographer on a night assignment. Then he stopped a juvenile, also walking along. He enlisted the two civilians to run down to the beach road and nab the criminal! He ordered them to do it! One of them a child, the other presumably carrying expensive photography equipment! Can you imagine?

This must not be odd in Mumbai because the two citizens obeyed, trotting down to the beach as they were directed to, and grabbing the pickpocket. In the commotion, the victim woke up and confirmed that 500 rupees were gone. The pickpocket was searched—by the enlisted civilians—but they found no cash on him.

The Mumbai pickpocket

By then the constable arrived and his expertise proved itself. He turned up the thief’s shirt collar, felt for an opened seam, and from it withdrew the victim’s 500 rupees. Then he found a razor blade hidden in a slit seam of the pickpocket’s shirt cuff.

The pickpocket admitted that he’d dipped into the pockets of 16 other people in the area that night. Where then, was the rest of his loot? He also admitted to being a drug user. Perhaps he purchased drugs with the cash he stole earlier—weed was found in his pants pocket. Or he may have paid off a boss or a debt, or simply stashed his loot for safekeeping.

You can read a first-hand account by the photographer.