In a joint operation by the West Bengal police and the Visakhapatnam city police, two members of a nine-member gang from Bihar were arrested here on Wednesday night.
In a sensational follow-up on Thursday, the crime branch of the Visakhapatnam police recovered a huge cache of sophisticated weapons. It included five automatic .32 foreign made pistols, one tapancha (country-made pistol), 80 rounds of .32 and 6 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
This was the biggest arms haul in Viskhapatnam city in recent times. More important, it was a preventive arrest. The gang was allegedly planning to loot a few offices of Muthoot Finance, Manappuram Finance and a couple of nationalised banks. The arrested were identified as Thakur Anurag Kumar Singh alias Jacky and Sunny Kumar Singh of Bihar.
According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), Visakhapatnam, T. Ravi Kumar Murthy, two other members of the gang, Sasanth Singh and Manoj Kumar, had been arrested earlier at Pusapatirega in Vizianagaram. Another member, Mukesh Prasadwas, was arrested from Rajamahendravaram on February 6. All of them hailed from Bihar. “The arrest of the three members gave us the lead to close in on Jacky and Sunny. The duo was arrested in a covert operation from R.K. Beach,” he said.
Plans to loot Muthoot
“The weapons were recovered from a house in Budhavarapu Gardens, a posh locality in the city, that was rented by the duo. All nine gang members had decided to meet on Thursday at R.K. Beach and plan the operation.
Jacky and Sunny, who moved to the city on January 29, had conducted a recce of a couple of offices of Manappuram and Muthoot,” said Mr. Murthy.
The gang had, in July 2016, committed an armed robbery at a finance company in Nagpur and made good with about 30 kg of gold. In December last, it looted the office of Manappuram in Barrackpore in Bengal and decamped with 30 kg of gold. The leader of the gang, Subodh Kumar Singh alias Kumar Gaurav, is still at large and is being tracked by the police of Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra.
The seized weapons, except the tapancha , had the marking ‘Made in USA.’ But they looked like .32 Beretta pistols, the police said. While the make was yet to be established, it was likely that they were purchased from the ‘Red Corridor’ area of Nepal or from the grey market in Malda, Bengal.
