The Coimbatore City Police has arrested four persons from North India, suspected to be part of a gang that robbed passengers of valuables in long-distance luxury buses, and recovered 3.5 sovereigns of gold jewellery.
According to the police sources, they were nabbed by a special team constituted after a jewellery shop manager from Coimbatore was robbed recently while returning from Bangalore with gold jewellery. Headed by Assistant Commissioner (West) K. Kanagaraj, the team found that a gang of north Indians were posing as passengers and travelling in luxury buses that plied to places such as Bangalore, Kochi and Chennai.
Modus operandi
Their modus operandi was that they would stop the bus in the middle of the journey, when most of the passengers were fast asleep, and disembark with the luggage of another passenger suspected of carrying valuables.
Further, they would also steal valuables from bags and apply adhesive on the zipper so that it would take quite sometime for passenger to realise they had been robbed, giving them ample time to get away. Those arrested have been identified as Josh Mohammed, 40, Mintoo and Muni Dev, both 30 and Babloo, 39. They hail from JP District of Uttar Pradesh. Police also suspect their involvement in a few robbery cases in Coimbatore. All the four were secured in Coimbatore on Wednesday and several tools were recovered from them.
