With the arrest of three persons including two students of a polytechnic doing their Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, police have unravelled the mystery behind the series of laptop thefts that Coimbatore witnessed in the last eleven months.
City Police Commissioner A.K. Viswanathan and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime and Traffic) T. Senthilkumar told reporters that the series of laptop thefts resulted in the formation of special teams.
The teams led by Assistant Commissioner of Police K. Ramachandran and Inspector S. Elango kept tabs on shops that dealt with sale and service of laptops.
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On September 19, when the team members were maintaining vigil near a store selling laptops, two persons came with a bag containing four laptops.
On suspicion, the two were intercepted and questioning revealed that they were part of a three-member gang that indulged in looting laptops from houses and rooms of engineering students, besides information technology professionals staying in Saravanampatty and Peelamedu areas.
The arrested accused have been identified as T. Vimal Prasad of Sirumugai, doing his diploma in Mechanical Engineering, S. Arun of Kalapatti Nehru Nagar doing his diploma in Mechanical Engineering, and S. Jeevaraj of Kappalur in Thirumangalam Taluk of Madurai district.
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The gang members would look for the place where the victims would keep their keys while going out, as they shared rooms with others.
Either by getting hold of the keys or breaking open doors, the gang had stolen 31 laptop computers, LCD TVs and desktop computers besides hard disks. The value of the property stolen and recovered now is worth over Rs. 10 lakh.
Further investigations are on regarding the case.