Breakthrough in Muthoot Finance case, three detained

The Cyberabad police on Wednesday achieved breakthrough in the sensational Muthoot Finance dacoity, by identifying hideouts of the accused in Maharashtra.

While key persons in the daring dacoity — executed during daytime — are still eluding police, some of their associates were detained and are being interrogated.

“Yes. We have identified hideouts and even houses of the dacoits involved in the case. It is a matter of time now to catch them,” Cyberabad police top brass said. Nearly two dozen special parties of Cyberabad police had been combing different areas in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra States for the past one week for the suspects in the case.

A gang of five persons, two carrying short firearms, drove in a Black Scorpio to Muthoot Finance’s branch at Ramachandrapuram on the city outskirts around 9.20 a.m. on December 28 last. Posing as CBI officials, they walked inside bringing along with them one of their associates, masquerading him as a thief. Once inside the Finance office on first floor of the roadside building, they whipped out short firearms and made off with 42 kg of gold jewellery and Rs. one lakh.

Video footage of the Black Scorpio and portraits of suspects — prepared based on description of the dacoits given by Muthoot Finance employees — were the only clues for the sleuths. Stitching up available leads, special teams swung into action but couldn’t reach the gang. They continued their efforts and realised that the gang had visited the outskirts of Hyderabad in the same Black Scorpio thrice. “Apparently, they came to do reconnaissance of Muthoot Finance. In that process, they sought the help of locals in Telangana State,” a police officer said.

The locals weren’t aware of the gang’s dacoity plot. By converging info gathered from different sources like vehicle number plate makers, human intelligence, usage of software to analyse mobile phone call data records and updates from teams on the fields helped them narrow down on the suspects. Police identified that the gang used another vehicle to pilot the Scorpio. Members of the gang were mostly from South Indian States, but had developed network in Maharashtra. The gang was involved in many sensational robberies and dacoities in different States.