Perhaps for the first time, police deployed a drone to locate and nab a couple of dacoits who hid themselves under the cover of thick vegetation in the middle of an expansive water spread.
In an episode that could successfully vie for glory with a drama involving rapidly unfolding events, public and the police trapped two dacoits in an unique operation. A gang of three masked men was trying to break into the house of retired PWD official Ramadoss at Gnanaprakasam Nagar near here in the early hours of Monday. His neighbour noticed it and alerted Ramadoss, who opened the main door of his house only to confront the dacoits.
Taken aback, he immediately tried to shut the door but in the process hit the trio, which fell down but managed to quickly shove away Mr. Ramadoss. On hearing the commotion, his son Vinayakam and wife Rajathi joined the tussle. The dacoits tried to assault Mr. Ramadoss and Mr. Vinayakam who suffered mild injuries. The dacoits, however, snatched a gold chain weighing seven sovereigns from Ms. Rajathi and escaped. The family raised an alarm and a clutch of neighbours joined the chase. The gang crossed the railway track nearby and jumped into the Samudram tank.
By then, the police were alerted and they rushed to the spot. The police and the public first pinned down Prakash (37) of Rayamundanpatti, who was part of the gang. They could not locate the other two robbers due to darkness and they were thought to be held up in the middle of the tank.
Sensing the difficulty of searching the sprawling waterbody spread over more than 20 acres and dotted with thick vegetation of wild growth in the middle, the police hit upon the idea of deploying a drone to locate the dacoits.
Immediately they sourced one from a private photography house in the town and scanned the area with the help of the “eye in the sky.” Occasionally, the dacoits would peep out of the vegetation to see what was happening. When the public raised a cry on seeing them, they would pull back. But the camera accurately spotted one of them standing near a palmyrah tree, the police went after him. They claimed that one dacoit who is still at large tried to drag the feet of a policeman swimming towards the spotted dacoit.
While the drone operation resulted in securing one member of the gang, identified as K. Arivalagan, the search was continuing for the other – Veeraiyyan of Aavaarampatti, who is holed up in the tank.
Police sources said that this was the first time in Thanjavur district that the police had used a drone to nab a culprit. Residents of Gnanaprakasam Nagar lauded the timely and novel intervention of the police to secure the culprits.
