Seven members of an armed gang who robbed 25,091 grams of gold jewellery worth around ₹7.5 crore and ₹96,000 cash in broad daylight from a Muthoot Finance Limited branch at Hosur in Krishnagiri district on Friday, were arrested on the outskirts of Hyderabad in the early 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 in the Hyderabad and Rachakonda Commissionerates of Telangana 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 down and locked the employees inside and escaped from the scene on their newly purchased bikes.
Toll gate data
Local police zeroed in on a gang from north India which was involved in similar offences in other States and based on the toll gate data and technical aid, their vehicles 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 the Telangana police,” 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.
Around 3 a.m. near Raikal toll plaza, a police team spotted an SUV with occupants of similar features as narrated by the Tamil Nadu police, and was trailing it till Tondupally toll plaza as there was a huge armed force deployment there.
Cyberabad Commissioner of Police VC Sajjanar said Rup Singh Baghal,22, a student, Shankar Singh Bayyal Baghal, 36, and Pavan Kumar Vishkarma, 22, from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, Bupendhar Manji, 24, and Vivek Mandal, 32, of Ranchi, Jharkhand, who were travelling in the SUV were caught at Tondupally toll plaza.
The container driver Tek Ram, 55, and helper Rajeev Kumar, 35, from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh were nabbed near Medchal.
One of the prime suspects Amith alias Vivek Shukla from Indore in Madhya Pradesh, who was travelling in the container, managed to escape.
