Dubai: Two street thieves in Pakistan were arrested by the police last week with the help of selfies they took on a stolen phone, unaware that it was set to backup the photos to Google.
Alerted by the online activity, police were able to track the criminals and arrest them in Karachi.
The thieves identified as Nadeem and Majid, robbed a woman, Erum Altaf, at gunpoint at Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority (DHA)on December 27, according to Pakistani new website The Express Tribune. Altaf lodged a First Information Report (FIR) at the Darakhshan police station on December 29. Less than a week after the FIR was lodged, however, the thieves took selfies on the phone, oblivious to the fact that Altaf had set her system to automatically backup photos to her Google account.
The police were able to identify the thieves using the images, and cross referencing them on the National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) files. They were arrested shortly by the Darakhshan police. According to Pakistani media reports, the phone was recovered along with other stolen goods and illegal weapons.
Many social media users were amused by the story, and acknowledged everyone’s positive role.
Nyla Nasir replied on a Facebook comment thread saying: “... really enjoyed this. A real life event with foolish criminals. And a smart lady with a truly smart phone. Great move by police with a positive outcome.”
Others expressed more serious concerns.
Tweep @khankakarzai felt that the police were revealing their secrets too soon. She posted: “Police and media should not be sharing their techniques of catching criminals. For this will alert the other ones [criminals] and they will not do it ... police will never be able to catch the rest of them.”
Others came forward with similar experiences of robbers getting nabbed because of their love for taking photographs.
In many cases such as this one, people’s love for selfies has had a positive outcome when it comes to case proceedings. However, obsessive selfie-taking has simultaneously been a cause of several deaths in the digital generation.
