Forty held for chain snatching in a fortnight: police

Forty men have been arrested in connection with chain snatching and a huge quantity of gold chains recovered from them in recent weeks by the Chennai Suburban Police, S.Bhaskaran, Deputy Commissioner of Police, St. Thomas Mount, said on Monday.

Briefing reporters, he said chain snatching incidents have reduced after the police decided to deploy decoys. The decoy team comprised police constables and a sub-inspector.

In the past fortnight, police arrested 40 men and recovered jewellery weighing 70 sovereigns.

Among other important cases the police had solved include robbery and vehicle theft in areas around Tambaram following the arrest of M.Sivakumar of Kodambakkam. A car was also recovered from him in addition to multiple ATM cards.

Similarly, a lorry and a car and 15 sovereigns of jewellery were recovered following the arrest of nine men involved in crime cases in Ambattur district.

Land grab cases

A press release from the Commissionerate said the Land Grab Cell had received 147 complaints. Forty people were arrested and 13.79 acres of land, whose combined value has been put at Rs. 21.44 crore, had been restored to their rightful owners.

A month after a lorry carrying a load of benzene was stolen by a group of men, suburban police arrested 10 men, and also recovered the vehicle. A businessman had complained that he had hired a lorry from an agency in Chennai and sent the load to M.Karthikeyan in Tuticorin on July 24. However, neither Karthikeyan nor the lorry driver could be reached.

Investigations established that Karthikeyan in connivance with the driver and eight others had managed to sell the lorry along with the load of benzene to a group in Rajasthan.

While the lorry was sold for Rs.16 lakh, the chemical substance was sold for Rs.5.2 lakh. Nasarathpet police conducted an investigation and policemen went to the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Rajasthan to nab the suspects and recover the stolen vehicle, the release said.