The police arrested six members of a gang and recovered 21 LCD computer monitors in addition to other accessories valued at Rs.5 lakh from their possession. The gang was involved in a series of four robberies in which they stole computer systems from Government high schools in some villages in Gannavaram area since June last year.
The arrested persons produced before the media on Saturday were Nainavarapu Durga Prasad of Rajivnagar Colony in Gannavaram, Gandikota Sitaramaiah, Garike Srinu, Dumpala Durga Rao, Akula Balakrishna and auto driver Nalluri Durga Prasad. Out of them, Sitaramaiah studied up to M.Sc and was working as a teacher at a private school.
The gang committed robberies in Dawajigudem, Gollanapalli, Mustabad and Veerapanenigudem villages. A special team formed by Commissioner of Police Amit Garg nabbed the gang after extensive search operations and intelligence gathering from various villages in the past several months.
Deputy Commissioner of Police M. Ravindranath Babu said that their modus operandi was to do a recce at Government high schools during day time and carry out their robberies during nights. They were selling the computers at Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 8,000 per system.
The accused were arrested when they were waiting at Gannavaram bus stand at 5 a.m. on Saturday.
At most of the schools where they committed robberies, there was no watchman facility at nights and this proved to be helpful for the gang to enter the premises easily. They would open the door locks with blades and get the computer systems, which they would carry in the autorickshaw that belongs to Durga Prasad.
The robberies were committed during holidays for the schools.
A serious note of these robberies was taken when they occurred in a series particularly at Government schools.
