: Three Telugu TV news channel reporters, along with three others, were arrested on Saturday for allegedly looting a businessman of Rs. 19 lakh, posing as special police party.
Four of their accomplices, including two constables of Cyberabad police, with whose help they executed the plot, were still at large. The arrested reporters Uppal Praveen Kumar (33), Seth Deepak (28), and P. Suman (24), along with vegetable vendor Ch. Srinivas (30), businessman B. Karthik (33), and foreign currency broker G. Anil Kumar (33), were presented before a court. They were being remanded in judicial custody when reports last came in.
Hunt was on for crime constables of Alwal police station M. Sudhakar Reddy (28) and M. Yadagiri (35), who executed the dacoity plot hatched by one of the three journalists, North zone DCP B. Sumathi said on Saturday.
Seeds for the dacoity were sown when one of the journalists got a tip-off that a businessman from Armoor of Nizamabad, S. Santosh, and three of his friends, started for the city in a car carrying Rs. 19 lakh on Thursday night. The reporter hatched a plot with the other two journalists and the constable duo to loot the cash, North zone DCP B. Sumathi said on Saturday.
On learning that the car with cash reached Alwal Rytu Bazar, the quintet rushed there around 9 p.m. on Thursday. One of them went to the car and directed the passengers inside to open the dickey claiming that they were from Task Force police wing.
“We have some information. The man standing a few feet away is Additional SP of TF,” they said pointing to one of the three journalists. On finding currency notes of Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 100 denominations in two bags, the accused scared Santosh and others stating that they would be arrested for illegal possession of cash.
Later, the gang took Santosh and others to a secluded location in Sai Baba Colony. While one of them rode a bike piloting the car, others followed on a bike from behind. They forcibly took the cash bags and rode off. Santosh approached the Alwal police only to be directed to Bollarum police station on point of jurisdiction.
The Bollarum police checked with the original TF wing of Hyderabad police. “We believed it was fake TF gang but after apprehension of the three journalists, complicity of two Alwal crime constables came out,” the DCP said.
Hunt was on for the two constables and other two accused.
