The city police on Friday arrested a former call centre employee, her boyfriend and three of their accomplices for chain-snatching.
Twenty-one-year-old Sana Khan of Mumbai had come to the city 18 months ago, and was staying at her relative’s house in Kharkana.
She had been pursuing a fashion designing course, while also working at a call centre at Uppal.
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During this time, she developed a friendship with Mohammed Shoeb Ahmed, a resident of the same neighbourhood. Sana quit her job and got engaged to Shoeb.
Later, the couple and their friends – Mufadal, V.K.S. Raghav and J.S. Bharghav (both engineering students), formed a gang and began stealing chains.
The gang was involved in as many as 23 snatchings that took place under the Hyderabad and Cyberabad police commissionerates, City Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma said after presenting the accused before the media here on Friday.
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Sana was an active participant in a few such instances of crime, Mr. Sharma said.
The gang would divide themselves into two groups and strike at different places.
The couple were caught when they tried to run away, leaving their car behind, on noticing police checking vehicles at the Old Bowenpally check-post on Thursday. Police, however, nabbed them after a chase.
Three gold chains, an electronic weighing machine and half a kilogram of ganja , were recovered from their car, the Commissioner said.
Based on their confession, Shoeb’s friends were also caught.
Police recovered 70 tolas of gold chains, a car, three motorcycles, electronic gadgets and 1500 grams of ganja , all worth over Rs.30 lakh from them.
Mufadal is a resident of Trimulgherry, while Raghav and Barghav were from Srinagar Colony and Yousufguda, respectively.
Woman held for stealing handbags
In a separate case, police arrested a 36-year-old woman, G. Janaki of Vijayawada, for allegedly stealing handbags from women passengers in RTC buses.
Gold ornaments weighing over 310 grams and worth over Rs.10 lakh, were seized from her possession.