The special police team, comprising officers from Fourth Town, Three Town and MVP Police stations, arrested a notorious criminal -- Mamidi Tirupathi Rao (27) -- here on Thursday, while he was trying to sell stolen gold ornaments at a jewellery shop near Kurupam Market in the Old Town area.
A native of Gangada village, Srikakulam district, Tirupathi Rao studied up to intermediate and took to crime at an early age to satiate his vices. He committed his first crime in 2009 by stealing a motorcycle. Thereafter he committed 17 crimes, which includes motorcycle thefts and house breakings, under various police station limits. He even committed a motorcycle theft in Rayagada in Odisha.
In 2011, he also committed kidnap and murder. “He kidnapped one Sandeep, a contractor, for whom he was working as a car driver. He tried to extort money from Sandeep’s wife and eventually killed him near Sheelanagar,” said ADCP (Crime) S. Varadaraju. He was arrested for the murder and had come out on bail, but continued to commit offences. He was again arrested in October, 2015, by MVP Police Station for robbery cases and was out on bail. In March 15, this year, Tirupathi Rao committed three grave house-breaking offences at Andhra University quarters at Sivajipalem, on a single day, and made good with about 914.25 gm of gold ornaments, 1.5 kg of silver articles and cash of Rs. 1.6 lakhs.
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The police recovered 144 gm of gold and two stolen motorcycles from him.
According to Mr. Varadaraju, the offender said that he is penning a book covering various aspects such as the crimes that he committed, how he committed, the psychology of the police and how to dodge the police investigation.