A 31-year-old engineering graduate has been arrested for stealing high-value items from hospitals across Delhi-NCR, Jaipur, Mumbai, and Pune, the police said on Thursday.

The accused, identified as Vikas, reportedly bore a personal grudge against the medical fraternity after falling into severe debt while paying for his COVID-19 treatment.

According to police, the accused, a computer science graduate from the Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Pune, began harbouring resentment towards hospitals after a Pune facility refused his request for a concession on his medical bills during the pandemic in 2021. In what he described as an act of retaliation, he started stealing expensive equipment from hospitals.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East), Ravi Kumar Singh, confirmed Vikas’s arrest from a hotel in Paharganj, following a complaint lodged at Apollo Hospital in Sarita Vihar. A laptop and a mobile phone had been stolen from the hospital’s oncology OPD on April 10.

During interrogation, the accused confessed to targeting several other prominent hospitals, including Manipal Hospital in Dwarka, Fortis Hospital in Vasant Kunj, and Max Super Speciality Hospital in Noida, the police officer said.

Police recovered four laptops, a mobile phone, headphones, a pair of luxury sunglasses, ₹6,100 in cash, and a forged bill book used to generate fake invoices for selling the stolen goods.

To avoid detection, Vikas refrained from using SIM cards and relied on Wi-Fi. Before arriving in Delhi on April 8, he had spent 21 days in Jaipur committing similar thefts and is also linked to six previous theft cases in Pune and Mumbai, the officer added.