Six men on the run, allegedly after shooting dead a Maoist-turned politician in Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh, were nabbed from Thiruvananthapuram. Their choice of the State capital as hideout had not raised eyebrows. There was the regular rigmarole of checking out whether there were any local contacts, nothing much else.
Now, another fugitive criminal has been nabbed from the capital district, that too while he was enjoying himself in the serene environs of an ashram not far from the city. According to S. Balachandran, sub-inspector, Vellarada, Jayan, an accused in kidnapping and highway robbery cases, as per details furnished by a Karnataka police team that reached here, was so much at ease after attending a wedding at the ashram. He was continuously on his phone, ‘chatting with several girlfriends,’ till 2 a.m. The police team from Ramnagar Town Circle police station, Karnataka, and the Vellarada police, tired of waiting for the late night Casanova to put the phone down, finally barged into the ashram and arrested him.
“He is a born criminal, or that is what the Karnataka police told us. He has been to the ashram before as well, with none there being aware of his antecedents. It appears he was just looking for a peaceful hideout while on the run,” the police said. Incidentally, mobile phone signals had helped cops trace the runaway criminal, and now his call details here too are being probed.
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The threat of the sand mafia on the coastal belt of the capital district has been a long-standing menace.
Now, it appears the mafia has been making inroads into the few swathes of paddy fields on the outskirts of the city as well. The impact has been quite disastrous, at least for one man who attempted to stand up against sand smugglers.
Robert Raj, uneasy over the impact of sand being mined away from an adjacent paddy field, had tried to block a tipper lorry from ferrying sand from there, only to end up in hospital with both his legs crushed and with a big question mark hovering over the possibility of him walking again.
Robert had alerted the police and blocked the lorry by throwing two logs across its path.
But the owner of the paddy field and his client allegedly pushed him aside and tried to proceed with the load of sand, only to find a defiant Robert blocking their way again. According to the police, they pushed him away again, but he ended up under the rear wheels of the tipper, which raced ahead on seeing a police jeep arrive, crushing Robert’s legs. The driver of the lorry, the sand-buyer and the owner of the field are still absconding, while Robert is in hospital. So far, there have been no police crackdown on sand-miners.
