# Snatching under BNS Section 304: theft or robbery?

**TL;DR:** Section 304 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 creates snatching as a distinct offence for the first time in Indian criminal law, defining it as theft where the offender suddenly, quickly, or forcibly seizes movable property from a person or their possession. It sits between theft (Section 303) and robbery (Section 309), and the dividing line is the manner of taking, not the value of what was taken.

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## On this page

- [What Section 304 BNS actually says](#what-section-304-bns-actually-says)
- [Theft, snatching, and robbery: the three-way comparison](#theft-snatching-and-robbery-the-three-way-comparison)
- [Punishment: how the three offences stack up](#punishment-how-the-three-offences-stack-up)
- [Why the classification matters in practice](#why-the-classification-matters-in-practice)
- [Evidentiary reality: what actually decides these cases](#evidentiary-reality-what-actually-decides-these-cases)
- [The IPC position before 1 July 2024](#the-ipc-position-before-1-july-2024)
- [The classification decision, worked through](#the-classification-decision-worked-through)
- [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions)

## What Section 304 BNS actually says

Section 304 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 has two sub-sections. The first defines the offence: theft is "snatching" if, in order to commit theft, the offender suddenly, quickly, or forcibly seizes, secures, grabs, or takes away movable property from any person or from that person's possession. The second sub-section fixes the punishment.

Read that definition again, because the drafting is doing specific work. Snatching is not a freestanding offence built from scratch. It is theft, first, with an additional element bolted on: the manner of the taking has to be sudden, quick, or forcible. A person commits theft under Section 303 BNS the moment they dishonestly move someone else's property out of that person's possession without consent. Snatching is that same act, done in a particular way, against a person who is present and in physical or immediate control of the object at the moment it is taken.

The word "forcibly" in the definition is where confusion sets in for anyone reading the section next to the robbery provision. Section 309 BNS also uses force as an element, but the two provisions mean different things by it. Robbery under Section 309 requires that the offender, in order to commit the theft or to carry away the stolen property, causes or attempts to cause death, hurt, or wrongful restraint, or puts the victim in fear of instant death, instant hurt, or instant wrongful restraint. That is force or fear directed at the person, deployed to overcome resistance or compel surrender of the property. Snatching's "forcibly" describes the physical act of wrenching an object away, a chain off a neck, a phone out of a hand, a bag off a shoulder, without that additional element of causing or threatening harm to the person as the means of extraction.

A useful way to hold the two apart: robbery is force used against the victim to get the property. Snatching is force used against the object, applied so fast that the victim has no real opportunity to resist. The offender is not overpowering the victim's will. The offender is exploiting the victim's surprise. The general discipline of reading the operative words of a section before relying on a secondary summary, covered in our piece on [primary versus secondary legal sources](/blog/primary-vs-secondary-legal-sources), matters especially here, because "force" is doing two different jobs in two adjoining sections.

This construction means Section 304 did not exist as a discrete offence under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, one of several provisions the [new criminal laws replacing the IPC, CrPC, and Evidence Act](/blog/new-criminal-laws-bns-bnss-bsa) introduced without an old-code equivalent. Snatching incidents before 1 July 2024 were charged under whichever adjoining provision the facts fit, usually theft under Section 379 IPC or robbery under Section 392 IPC, depending on how the investigating officer and, later, the prosecutor read the degree of force. The [BNS to IPC section mapping](/blog/bns-ipc-section-mapping) covers this kind of gap directly: Section 304 BNS is listed among the provisions with no IPC ancestor, alongside a caution worth repeating here because it corrects a common error. Several published mapping tables identify Section 112 BNS as the snatching provision. That is not accurate. Section 112 BNS is titled "petty organised crime" and covers snatching only where it forms part of a pattern of repeat or organised offending by someone with a documented history of similar acts, alongside pickpocketing, shoplifting-based theft, and card skimming. A single, unorganised snatching incident by a first-time offender is charged under Section 304, not Section 112. The two provisions address the same underlying conduct at different points on a spectrum of repetition and organisation, and confusing them in a charge sheet or a bail argument is the kind of error that gets corrected fast once opposing counsel notices it.

Because Section 304 has no direct IPC ancestor, there is no body of decades-old case law construing its exact words. Every element in the definition, what counts as "sudden," how "quick" differs from "forcible," how much physical contact with the victim is tolerable before the act tips into robbery, will be worked out afresh by courts applying the BNS text over the coming years. That is a real gap for practitioners used to citing settled authority, and it is worth naming plainly rather than papering over with a borrowed IPC precedent that was never actually deciding this question. When an old judgment is genuinely on point for a neighbouring concept rather than for Section 304 itself, our piece on [how to cite Indian judgments](/blog/how-to-cite-indian-judgments) covers how to attribute that authority accurately rather than overstating what it decided.

## Theft, snatching, and robbery: the three-way comparison

The three provisions sit in the same chapter of the BNS, on offences against property, and they share a common ancestor concept: theft is the base offence, and both snatching and robbery are theft with an additional element layered on. The table below sets out where each one lands on the elements that actually drive charging decisions.

| Element | Theft, BNS Section 303 | Snatching, BNS Section 304 | Robbery, BNS Section 309 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victim present and aware at the moment of taking | ✗ Not required | ✓ Required, by definition | ✓ Required |
| Force used directly on the person | ✗ No | ✗ No, force is on the object | ✓ Yes, or fear of instant harm |
| Suddenness or speed is a defining element | ✗ Not an element | ✓ Central to the definition | ✗ Not the defining element |
| Consent absent throughout | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Death, hurt, or wrongful restraint caused or threatened | ✗ No | ✗ No | ✓ Yes, or attempted |
| Standalone provision under the IPC | ✓ Yes, Section 379 | ✗ No, new under BNS | ✓ Yes, Section 392 |

Two rows deserve a closer look because they are where lawyers actually argue.

The "victim present and aware" row is the cleanest dividing line between theft and snatching. If the property owner had no idea the taking was happening, a pickpocket working a crowded bus, a thief lifting a phone left on a café table, that is theft, full stop, regardless of how quickly it happened, because there was no person from whom anything was "seized" in the sense the section requires. The moment the victim is holding the object, wearing it, or has it in immediate physical control when the offender acts, the door to a snatching charge opens.

The "force used directly on the person" row is the cleanest dividing line between snatching and robbery. A chain snatched off a neck while the victim is walking, with no push, no threat, no physical contact with the victim beyond the momentary contact of removing the object itself, sits in Section 304. The same incident where the offender shoves the victim to the ground first, or brandishes a weapon and threatens harm if the victim resists, moves into Section 309 territory even if the object taken and its value are identical. Courts will look at what the offender did to the person, not just what the offender took, and a defence lawyer resisting a robbery upgrade will point to the absence of any act or threat directed at the victim's body beyond the act of taking itself.

## Punishment: how the three offences stack up

The punishment structure tracks the seriousness gradient the elements suggest, though the specific quantums are worth stating precisely because a wrong number in a bail application or a plea discussion is the kind of error that gets caught immediately.

Theft under Section 303(2) BNS carries imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or fine, or both, for a first offence. A second or subsequent conviction under the section carries rigorous imprisonment for a term of not less than one year, extending to five years, along with fine. The section also carries a proviso: where the value of the stolen property is less than five thousand rupees and the accused is convicted for the first time, the court can direct community service upon return of the value or restoration of the property, in place of imprisonment. Our companion piece on [community service as punishment under the BNS](/blog/community-service-punishment-bns) works through how that proviso operates in practice, and how it changes the calculus for a lawyer advising a first-time theft accused. Section 304 carries no equivalent community-service proviso for snatching, which is itself a marker of how the legislature graded the two offences differently despite the identical three-year maximum term.

Snatching under Section 304(2) BNS carries imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, and the offender is also liable to fine. There is no separate enhanced band for a second or subsequent conviction written into the snatching provision itself, unlike the theft provision.

Robbery under Section 309(2) BNS carries rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to ten years, and the offender is also liable to fine. Where the robbery is committed on the highway between sunset and sunrise, the term may extend to fourteen years. Attempt to commit robbery under Section 309(3) carries rigorous imprisonment extending to seven years, with fine. Where the offender, in committing or attempting to commit robbery, voluntarily causes hurt, Section 309(4) raises the exposure to imprisonment for life, or rigorous imprisonment extending to ten years, with fine.

Lay that side by side and the gap between snatching and robbery is not incremental. It is the difference between a maximum of three years and a maximum of ten, fourteen on the highway-at-night aggravator, and life imprisonment if hurt is caused. That gap is exactly why the classification fight matters more than almost any other question in a snatching-adjacent file, and it is why the next section on practice matters as much as the statutory text.

## Why the classification matters in practice

The BNS drafting choice to carve snatching out as its own provision, sitting between theft and robbery on the punishment scale, changes how these cases get charged, bailed, and defended in ways that go beyond the arithmetic of maximum sentences.

**The charge the police pick at FIR stage.** An investigating officer recording a complaint of a chain or phone snatched from a pedestrian now has a section that maps directly onto the fact pattern without needing to stretch the facts toward theft, which understates what happened, or toward robbery, which requires proving force or fear directed at the person. Before 1 July 2024, an officer working the same facts had to choose between two provisions that did not quite fit, and that choice often depended on which one seemed easier to prove or which one carried the punishment the officer thought the conduct deserved. A dedicated section removes that discretion at the margins, though it does not remove it entirely, since the line between "forcibly seizes" under Section 304 and "voluntarily causes... wrongful restraint" under Section 309 still turns on how the complainant describes the incident and how the investigating officer records that description in the FIR, whether registered as a regular FIR or as a [zero FIR](/blog/zero-fir-e-fir-bnss-guide) where the incident occurred outside the registering station's jurisdiction.

**The defence argument to move a charge down.** Where a client is charged under Section 309 for what looks, on the complainant's own account, like a straightforward snatching with no injury and no threat directed at the victim beyond the act of taking, the defence argument is to isolate exactly what force, if any, was used on the person as opposed to the object. If the complainant's statement describes only the object being pulled away, with the victim's own movement or resistance (if any) producing incidental contact rather than the offender initiating force on the victim's body, that is the fact pattern Section 304 was built to capture, not Section 309. This argument is made at the bail stage, at the framing of charge stage, and again at trial, and it depends entirely on parsing the complainant's own words rather than the label the FIR happened to use.

**The prosecution argument to resist a downgrade, or to press an upgrade.** Where the offender used a weapon, pushed or struck the victim, or the victim fell and was injured in the course of the taking, the prosecution's task is to show that force or the threat of instant harm was directed at the person, which moves the matter toward Section 309 regardless of how briefly that force was applied. A push that causes a fall and a fracture is not "sudden and forcible seizure of an object." It is wrongful restraint or hurt caused in order to commit the theft, which is the statutory language of robbery.

**Bail and cognizability.** The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) carries its own First Schedule classifying each BNS offence as cognizable or non-cognizable and bailable or non-bailable, and that classification is what actually governs whether a client can be arrested without a warrant and whether bail is a matter of right or a matter for the court's discretion. This is a question that has to be checked against the specific First Schedule entry for the section actually charged, and it is worth doing before advising a client rather than assuming a lower maximum sentence automatically means an easier bail position. Our guides on [bailable versus non-bailable offences](/blog/bailable-vs-non-bailable) and [cognizable versus non-cognizable offences](/blog/cognizable-vs-non-cognizable) work through what that classification actually controls procedurally, separate from the punishment quantum itself. Where custodial interrogation is a live concern before an FIR is even registered, the [anticipatory bail process under Section 482 BNSS](/blog/anticipatory-bail-bnss-section-482) is the relevant procedural route, and once bail is being argued on the merits, our [guide to drafting a bail application](/blog/drafting-bail-application-guide) covers how to frame the classification argument for the court rather than just asserting it.

**The chargesheet clock.** Once an accused is in custody, the police have a fixed window to file the chargesheet before the accused acquires an indefeasible right to default bail under [Section 187(3) BNSS](/blog/default-bail-bnss-section-187): sixty days for offences punishable with less than ten years' imprisonment, ninety days where the punishment extends to ten years, life imprisonment, or death. Snatching's three-year maximum places it in the sixty-day bracket. Robbery's ten-year maximum places it in the ninety-day bracket. That difference alone can decide whether a client is entitled to default bail on a specific date, which is one more reason the classification argument at the charging stage is not academic. Our [BNSS statutory timelines checklist](/blog/bnss-statutory-timelines-checklist) sets out the full set of deadlines that run alongside the chargesheet clock in a matter like this.

## Evidentiary reality: what actually decides these cases

Snatching cases are high in volume and, in most metro courts, thin in physical evidence. The offence happens in seconds, usually from behind or the side, often with the offender on a two-wheeler, and the victim's opportunity to form a reliable memory of the offender's face is genuinely limited. What a criminal lawyer working these files daily actually contests, on both sides, tends to be a narrow set of recurring issues.

**Identification.** Where the accused was not caught at the scene, the case usually turns on a test identification parade or a dock identification months later, both of which carry well-documented reliability problems when the original sighting lasted a few seconds. Defence counsel will press on lighting conditions, distance, whether the victim gave a description matching the accused before any parade was conducted, and whether the parade itself was conducted with proper safeguards against suggestion. Prosecutors lean on any independent corroboration, recovered property, CCTV, or a co-accused's statement, precisely because identification alone is fragile.

**Recovery of the snatched property.** A recovery memo showing the specific chain, phone, or bag recovered from the accused or from a person the accused led police to, ties the accused to the specific offence in a way identification testimony alone does not. The evidentiary value of a recovery depends heavily on the chain of custody: who seized the item, in whose presence, whether independent witnesses signed the recovery memo, how the item was sealed, and whether the seal remained intact through forensic examination if any was conducted. A break anywhere in that chain, an unsealed exhibit, a gap in the custody log, a recovery witness who turns hostile, gives the defence a genuine opening, and it is the single most litigated evidentiary point in property offence trials generally, not just snatching. Before relying on an older ruling on recovery evidence in submissions, [checking whether it is still good law](/blog/good-law-checking) matters, and a [citator built for that specific check](https://niyam.ai) is faster than tracing the chain of later judgments by hand.

**CCTV footage.** Metro snatching incidents increasingly happen within range of some camera, whether a shop front, a traffic signal, or a residential society gate, and footage showing the offender's vehicle, direction of approach, and general build has become a standard piece of the prosecution file where it exists. The practical problems are retention periods, many private CCTV systems overwrite footage within days or weeks, and authentication, since footage produced without a proper certificate under the electronic evidence provisions can be challenged on admissibility grounds before a court ever weighs its content. Our piece on [electronic evidence under Section 63 BSA](/blog/bsa-section-63-electronic-evidence) covers the certification requirement that now governs whether footage like this is admissible at all, which is a threshold question that has to be cleared before the footage's content becomes relevant to identification or the manner of the taking.

**The manner of the taking, as described by the first informant.** Because the entire theft-snatching-robbery classification turns on how the property was taken, the first version given to police, in the FIR itself or in the statement recorded immediately after, carries disproportionate weight. A complainant who says "he snatched my chain and ran" describes Section 304. A complainant who says "he pushed me down and pulled the chain off" describes something closer to Section 309. Lawyers on both sides read the earliest recorded version of events with particular care for exactly this reason, because a later, more elaborate account given at trial, months after the fact, is where courts start asking why the detail was not in the original complaint.

## The IPC position before 1 July 2024

Before the BNS came into force, snatching had no dedicated statutory home. An incident where an offender pulled a chain or bag away from a person had to be charged under whichever adjoining IPC provision the investigating officer and prosecutor thought the facts fit.

Where the act involved no force on the victim's person beyond the momentary contact of the taking itself, and particularly where the victim did not immediately realise what had happened, prosecutors charged theft under Section 379 IPC. Where the act involved a push, a struggle, a fall, or any conduct a court could characterise as voluntarily causing hurt or wrongful restraint in order to commit the theft, prosecutors charged robbery under Section 392 IPC, carrying rigorous imprisonment up to ten years. The result was a wide zone of genuinely similar fact patterns, chain snatchings on foot, on a moving two-wheeler, with or without incidental contact, that ended up charged and punished very differently depending on how the specific facts were characterised at the FIR stage, with no intermediate category to catch the cases that fit neither label comfortably.

This is precisely the gap Section 304 BNS was drafted to close. Whether the new provision produces more consistent charging across similar fact patterns, or simply relocates the same line-drawing dispute from a theft-versus-robbery argument to a snatching-versus-robbery argument, is a question the case law has not yet answered in any developed way. A search of reported decisions citing Section 304 BNS turns up, at this stage, largely bail orders from High Courts across Punjab and Haryana, Bihar, Odisha, and Himachal Pradesh, granting or refusing bail on the facts of the individual case without engaging the statutory elements in any sustained way. None of the decisions surveyed for this piece work through what "suddenly," "quickly," or "forcibly" mean as a matter of statutory construction, or where exactly the line to robbery sits when contact with the victim's body is minimal but present. Reading a bail order for what it actually decided, rather than for the section it happened to cite, is the same discipline covered in our guide on [how to read and brief an Indian judgment](/blog/how-to-read-a-judgment). For a provision that came into force just over two years ago, that gap is expected rather than a sign of neglect, and it is worth telling a client plainly that the interpretive case law on this specific section is still being built rather than reaching for an IPC-era robbery or theft authority and presenting it as though it decided this question. The general test for when older authority still applies is covered in our piece on [whether IPC precedents apply under BNS](/blog/do-ipc-precedents-apply-under-bns): where the operative language changed, as it plainly has here, since Section 304 has no IPC ancestor at all, old case law speaks to the surrounding concepts of theft and robbery but does not resolve the new provision's own boundary questions.

Two related offences worth naming for scope, since a working criminal lawyer will see them charged alongside or in place of snatching depending on the facts: where the underlying incident escalates into serious violence against the person, prosecutors may consider the organised crime provisions covered in our piece on [organised crime under Section 111 BNS](/blog/bns-organised-crime-section-111), and where a snatching incident is committed by a group acting on discriminatory grounds and results in death, the aggravated murder provision discussed in our piece on [the mob lynching provision under BNS](/blog/bns-mob-lynching-provision) may apply instead. Neither is the default charge for an ordinary snatching, but both mark the outer edges of where these fact patterns can escalate.

## The classification decision, worked through

The flowchart below sets out the practical sequence a prosecutor or defence lawyer works through when classifying a property-snatching incident, starting from the raw facts and ending at the section that actually fits.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A["Object taken from victim"] --> B{"Was the victim present\nand aware at the\nmoment of taking?"}
    B -->|"No"| C["Theft, BNS Section 303"]
    B -->|"Yes"| D{"Was force or threat of\ninstant harm directed\nat the victim's body?"}
    D -->|"No, only the object\nwas seized suddenly,\nquickly, or forcibly"| E["Snatching, BNS Section 304"]
    D -->|"Yes, death, hurt, or\nwrongful restraint caused\nor attempted"| F["Robbery, BNS Section 309"]
    F --> G{"Five or more offenders\nacting together?"}
    G -->|"Yes"| H["Dacoity, BNS Section 310"]
    G -->|"No"| I["Charge remains robbery"]
    E --> J{"Prior similar acts, or\npart of an organised\nor repeat pattern?"}
    J -->|"Yes"| K["Consider petty organised\ncrime, BNS Section 112"]
    J -->|"No"| L["Charge remains snatching"]
    F --> M{"Hurt voluntarily caused\nduring the robbery?"}
    M -->|"Yes"| N["Enhanced punishment,\nSection 309(4) BNS"]
```

The decision tree looks mechanical on paper. In practice, every branch point depends on how the complainant's earliest account describes the physical sequence of events, which is exactly why the evidentiary discipline covered above, taking the first statement seriously and testing it against whatever CCTV or recovery evidence exists, decides more of these cases than the statutory text alone ever could. A [search tool that surfaces prior orders on a specific section](https://niyam.ai) alongside the bare statutory text can shorten the research step here, since checking how a particular bench has drawn the theft-snatching-robbery line in comparable fact patterns is still faster through a targeted search than reading through a long list of bail orders one at a time.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the exact definition of snatching under Section 304 BNS?
Section 304(1) BNS defines theft as "snatching" where, in order to commit the theft, the offender suddenly, quickly, or forcibly seizes, secures, grabs, or takes away movable property from a person or from that person's possession. It is theft with an added element: the manner of taking must involve one of those three qualities, and the victim must be present when the property is taken.

### Is snatching a new offence, or was it always covered by theft or robbery?
Section 304 BNS has no ancestor provision in the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Snatching incidents before 1 July 2024 were charged under Section 379 IPC (theft) or Section 392 IPC (robbery), depending on how much force the facts showed. The BNS is the first Indian penal code to give snatching its own dedicated provision.

### What is the maximum punishment for snatching under BNS Section 304?
Section 304(2) BNS prescribes imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, along with fine. There is no separately enhanced band written into this section for repeat offenders, unlike the theft provision.

### How is snatching different from robbery under the BNS?
The dividing line is whether force or the threat of instant harm was directed at the victim's person. Robbery under Section 309 BNS requires the offender to cause or attempt to cause death, hurt, or wrongful restraint, or to put the victim in fear of instant harm, in order to take the property. Snatching under Section 304 involves force applied to seize the object itself, suddenly or quickly, without that additional element directed at the victim's body.

### How is snatching different from theft under the BNS?
Theft under Section 303 BNS does not require the victim to be present or aware at the moment of taking. Snatching under Section 304 requires exactly that: the victim is present, the property is in their immediate possession, and the offender takes it suddenly, quickly, or forcibly in that moment.

### Is Section 112 BNS the provision for snatching?
No. Section 112 BNS is titled "petty organised crime" and covers snatching only as part of a pattern of organised or repeat offending, alongside pickpocketing, shoplifting theft, and card skimming, committed by someone with a documented history of similar acts or as part of a group. An ordinary, first-time, unorganised snatching incident is charged under Section 304 BNS, not Section 112.

### Can a snatching charge be upgraded to robbery?
Yes, where the facts show force or a threat of instant harm directed at the victim's person, beyond the act of taking the object itself, such as a push that causes a fall, a struggle, or a weapon shown to compel surrender. The prosecution has to establish that additional element to sustain a robbery charge; absent it, the offence remains snatching.

### Can a robbery charge be brought down to snatching?
Yes, and this is a common defence strategy where the complainant's own account describes only the object being taken suddenly, with no independent act of force or threat against the victim's body. The argument is made at bail, at the charge-framing stage, and at trial by isolating what, if anything, was directed at the victim as opposed to the object.

### Is snatching a cognizable offence under the BNSS?
Cognizability and bail eligibility for any specific charge should be checked against the current BNSS First Schedule entry for the section actually invoked, since the classification governs whether police can arrest without a warrant and whether bail is available as a matter of right. This is a fact to verify against the schedule for the matter at hand rather than assume from the punishment quantum alone.

### What role does CCTV footage play in a snatching case?
Where available, CCTV footage helps establish the offender's vehicle, direction of approach, and physical build, and can corroborate or contradict a victim's identification. Its evidentiary value depends on retention (many private systems overwrite footage within days) and on proper certification under the electronic evidence provisions, since uncertified footage can be challenged on admissibility before a court considers its content at all.

### Why does the manner of taking matter so much for evidence?
Because the entire theft-snatching-robbery classification turns on it. The victim's earliest account to police, given in the FIR or the statement recorded immediately after, carries particular weight because it was recorded before the classification dispute existed and before either side had reason to shape the description toward one section or another.

### Is there settled case law interpreting Section 304 BNS?
Reported authority is thin. A search of decisions citing the section, mostly High Court bail orders from Punjab and Haryana, Bihar, Odisha, and Himachal Pradesh, shows courts deciding bail applications on the individual facts without engaging in sustained statutory construction of what "sudden," "quick," or "forcible" mean, or precisely where the line to robbery sits. For a provision in force just over two years, that is expected, and it means a lawyer should treat the statutory text as the primary authority rather than lean on a developed body of interpretive precedent that does not yet exist.

### Do old IPC judgments on theft and robbery help interpret Section 304 BNS?
They provide useful background on the surrounding concepts, what counts as dishonest taking, what counts as force sufficient for robbery, but they do not directly interpret Section 304, since no equivalent provision existed under the IPC. A lawyer citing an IPC-era robbery or theft judgment in a Section 304 matter should be explicit that the authority speaks to an adjoining concept, not to the specific new provision.

### What should a victim do immediately after a snatching incident?
File the FIR promptly and describe the incident as precisely as possible, including whether any physical contact, push, or threat was directed at them beyond the object being taken, since that detail affects which section the police invoke. Note any CCTV cameras in the vicinity quickly, since footage retention windows are often short, and preserve any physical evidence, a torn strap, a damaged clasp, without handling it more than necessary.

### Does the value of the property taken affect whether it is charged as theft or snatching?
No. The classification turns on the manner of the taking and whether the victim was present and aware, not on the value of the property. A low-value item snatched suddenly from a person's hand is still snatching under Section 304; a high-value item taken from an unattended location without the owner present is still theft under Section 303, regardless of value, though value can affect eligibility for the community service proviso under the theft provision specifically.

### Can a single incident involve both theft and snatching charges?
No, they describe alternative characterisations of the same act of taking, not cumulative offences. An incident is charged as one or the other based on whether the victim was present and aware and whether the taking was sudden, quick, or forcible. What can occur alongside either is a separate charge for a distinct act, such as criminal intimidation, where the offender's conduct extends beyond the act of taking itself.

### How does the BNSS chargesheet deadline apply to a snatching case?
The deadline in [Section 187(3) BNSS](/blog/default-bail-bnss-section-187) is tied to the punishment attached to the offence charged: sixty days where the maximum punishment is less than ten years, ninety days where it reaches ten years, life imprisonment, or death. Snatching's three-year maximum places it in the sixty-day bracket, which is a materially shorter window than the ninety-day bracket that applies once a matter is charged as robbery.

### Where can I read the exact text of Section 304 BNS to verify it myself?
The authoritative source is the bare act text at [indiacode.nic.in](https://www.indiacode.nic.in). [Indian Kanoon](https://indiankanoon.org) is useful for reading the section alongside the (currently limited) body of citing case law, and [PRS Legislative Research](https://prsindia.org) publishes the legislative text and explanatory notes for the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. Any mapping table, including this one, should be checked against the bare text before being relied on in a filing.