Seven members of an armed gang, who robbed a little over 25 kg of gold jewellery worth around ₹ 7.5 crore and ₹96,000 cash in broad daylight from a Muthoot Finance Limited branch at Hosur of Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu on Friday, were arrested on the outskirts of Hyderabad in the wee hours of Saturday.
The inter-State dacoity gang, which was trying to flee to Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand via Nagpur on National Highway 44, was nabbed by the Cyberabad police near Tondupally toll plaza near Shamshabad Airport in a joint operation with their counterparts of Hyderabad and Rachakonda Commissionerates and Krishnagiri police. The masked gang members robbed the gold ornaments on Friday morning after holding the Muthoot staff at gunpoint and took away the digital video recorder of the surveillance cameras from the branch. Then, they tied and locked the employees inside and escaped from the scene on their newly purchased bikes. They went towards Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border where a container vehicle and an SUV were waiting for them to escape further.
Local police zeroed in on a gang from north India involved in similar offences in other States and based on the toll gate data and technical aid, the vehicles used by the accused were tracked on National Highway 44 moving towards Hyderabad. Soon, the Krishnagiri police alerted their counterparts in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra.
“Though we couldn’t catch them in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, the gang was caught by theTelangana police. It was a well-coordinated operation, and there were chances of cross firing, as the gang members were carrying firearms,” Krishnagiri Superintendent of Police Bandi Gangadhar said. As soon as they got information from Krishnagiri, the Telangana police deployed Armed Reserve parties at all the toll plazas and started monitoring the ‘targeted’ vehicles.
