A two-member gang has been arrested for snatching chains and stealing vehicles. One of them is a bodybuilder who claims to have been crowned Mr Andhra a few years ago.
Girinagar police in southern Bengaluru solved two chain snatchings, an attempted chain snatching and two vehicle thefts by arresting them. They also recovered 10 grams of gold and two bikes, all worth Rs 6 lakh.
The suspects are Syed Basha, 34, and Shaik Ayub, 32, both from Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh. Basha is a bodybuilder.
The two men were infamous for snatching chains in Andhra Pradesh. They were involved in 36 cases and were arrested a few times by police there.
The duo would come to Bengaluru by bus and stay in hotels. They stole bikes and used them to snatch gold chains from elderly women. They would park the bikes at random places and go back to their hometown to sell off the valuables, said P Krishnakant, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South).
The duo had snatched a 56-gram gold chain from Janaki, 65, around 8 pm on March 22 when she was walking to her sister’s house in Girinagar.
The duo had also snatched the gold chain from a woman in Subramanyapura and attempted to snatch the chain from another woman in the same month. They were captured by CCTV cameras in Subramanyapura. They had used a Hero Passion bike. Krishnakant formed a special team to nab the duo.
Cops install GPS
Girinagar police traced the bike parked in Timber Yard Layout in Byatarayanapura. They fixed GPS to the bike around 20 days ago expecting the duo to take the bike and commit crimes. The gang came to the city on April 18. They took the bike and the police got an alert about the GPS. By the time police zeroed in on the duo, the GPS got switched off due to low battery.
Police again searched for the bike in the same place but the duo had parked the bike on an adjacent road. The next day when they came to take the bike, police inspector Sandeep Kumar B N and sub-inspector Raghu Naik A R and others nabbed them by disguising themselves as masons, fruit vendors and auto-rickshaw drivers.
Police found that the duo had stolen a Bajaj Pulsar and parked it at another place. They seized both bikes.
Was a driver in Kuwait
Basha, a graduate, told police he worked as a driver in Kuwait and returned to his native before Covid-19. He teamed up with Ayub to snatch chains.
Basha runs a hotel in Kadapa. After coming under the scanner of the Andhra Pradesh police, he and Ayub chose Bengaluru to commit chain snatching. They used to dispose of the gold chains with pawnbrokers in Kadapa.