Nobel Citation stolen from Kailash Satyarthi's Delhi home found; 3 held

Three persons have been arrested in connection with the theft of Nobel replica and other valuables from Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s Kalkaji residence in south-east Delhi.

While the stolen items including the Nobel replica have been recovered, the citation that was stolen along with the replica has not been found yet.

The three accused brothers, Rajan alias Natta (25), Vinod (35) and Sunil (28), have had previous involvements in burglary and robbery cases.

While expressing hope that the citation will be recovered soon, child rights activist Satyarthi thanked Delhi Police for the “brilliant and speedy recovery” of the stolen items.

Delhi Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik also tweeted about the case being solved.

“Was greatly concerned about theft of Shri Satyarthi’s prestigious Nobel Medal replica. Proud that @DelhiPolice recovered it in quick time,” he tweeted.

Traditional policing played a big role in solving the case, said R P Upadhyay, joint commissioner of police (Southeast).

Citing the theft of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize medal in 2004 from Visva Bharati University’s museum in Santiniketan, he said that the theft of Satyarthi’s Nobel replica was a “very important case” for them.

“For us, it was a case of national pride. 10 teams were working on the case and exploring different angles,” he added.

“In the CCTV footage that was recovered, two faces were muffled and one face was hazy and despite developing them, we didn’t have a clear picture of the accused,” he said.

Apart from technical surveillance, the cops also focused on record-based surveillance, he said.

The theft happened in the wee hours on February 7 and police was informed about the theft at Satyarthi’s flat in Aravali Apartments around 9 AM.

“When the police team reached the spot, the main door of the house was found broken. Rakesh Senger, who works with Satyarthi’s Bachpan Bachao Andolan, was the first to discover the theft.

“He told police that Satyarthi had gone to USA and the house was locked. The house was inspected by the crime team and the photographs of scene of crime were taken,” said DCP (southeast) Romil Baaniya.

Senger informed police that replica of Nobel Peace prize and citation had been stolen along with other expensive jewellery articles and other medals.

“During investigation, it was found that two other flats, that were also locked, were also burgled,” Baaniya added.

More than 50 people were identified following the analysis of burglaries with similar modus operandi in 2016-2017.

In the record, police found a similar modus operandi in a burglary case in the year 2016. Rajan (one of the accused) was arrested for a burglary in Shivalik Apartments in 2016.