The police nabbed seven persons of an eight-member gang who were involved in over 50 offences in various districts like Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam, East and West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and in Hyderabad and Nalgonda of Telangana State. The arrested were identified as Thadoju Srikanthraju alias Nagaraju (40), Ch. Naresh (27), A. Mallesh (32), N. Mahesh (32), P. Simhadri (25), all natives of Nalgonda district of Telangana, P. Srinivasa (40) of Warangal and K. Sanyasi Naidu (42) of Kasimkota area in Visakhapatnam district. The eighth member of the gang, K. Upendra, is still absconding. Incidentally K. Sanyasi Naidu is the upa-sarpanch of Bayyavaram in Kasimkota mandal.
According to Additional SP (crime) N.J. Rajkumar, four members of the gang, led by Srikanthraju, barged into Navodaya Granite located at Mamidipalem junction in Anakapalle on October 9 and robbed Rs. 50,000 by threatening its owner Kuditipudi Vijaya Prasad at gun point posing themselves as Maoists.
Later, they left by a Maruti Ertiga car. Basing on a complaint from Vijaya Prasad, K.N.S.V. Prasad, Circle-Inspector of Anakapalle (rural) enforced nakabandi at various points and he and his team intercepted the car at Etcherla Junction near Thallapalem. All the four were arrested and the car, the amount and two toy pistols were seized from them.
On interrogation, the accused led the police team to the three other gang members who were staying at a hotel near Thallapalem.
Hardcore criminal
The main accused, Srikanthraju, was a hardcore criminal and was involved in 14 cases. He was serving life imprisonment in a kidnap case of SR Nagar Hyderabad in 2010 and had come out on parole from Visakhapatnam Central Jail in April 2013 and had been absconding since then. According to Mr. Rajkumar, he was an active member of Talli Telangana Party and was involved in the chappal throwing at TDP leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy at Osmania University in 2009.
After jumping parole, he formed a gang with seven members, all with criminal track record, which he called as Srikanthraju gang and indulged in a series of offences in both states.
The modus operandi of the gang members was to pose themselves the police, Maoists or ACB officials and loot small industrialists, secluded weigh bridges and petrol bunks on the National Highway. They would also pick up lonely passengers in the car and loot them at gun point.
