Five men from Nepal held for burglaries in city

A gang of five members, all belonging to Nepal, were arrested for their involvement in a spate of burglaries in the city since 2007.

Mangal Singh, Manoj Bahadur, Sudeb Dhami, Vishal and Vinod Kumar, all in their 30s, are the arrested accused. With their arrest, the Whitefield division police claim to have solved five cases of burglary — three in Marathahalli, and one each in the Varthur and Viveknagar police station limits.

They have also recovered 7.5 kg of silver and electronic gadgets worth Rs 4.5 lakh.

According to the police, the accused, who are from Bajhang district in Nepal, would come to the city during the holiday seasons when most people went out of the city on vacation.

The accused used to take up security jobs during the day and at night would roam around the city to identify the locked houses.

They would check for lights that are switched on during the day, keep an eye on newspapers and milk lying in front of the houses, and look for houses with padlocks. Once they zeroed in on a locked house, they would break in by cutting open the hind door or window grills with hacksaw blades, a senior police officer said.

The gang had targeted locked houses during the recent Dasara holidays, the officer added.

Many cases of burglaries were registered at the Sampangiramnagar, Jeevan Bima Nagar, Chandapura and Malleswaram police stations, which prompted the police to form a special team to pursue the gang, the officer said.