Cops bowl out youths before hitting a ton!

Gang that was robbing lovers busted; another accomplice arrested

This is an incident straight out of any sandalwood flick, where in a gang of four youths had been robbing couples, majority at Chamundi Hills and its surroundings, for the past one month, using weapons.  Explaining about their modus operandi, Police Commissioner Sunil Agarwal said the accused Manju, aged 25 years, son of Kalegowda, Kailaspuram, Mandi Mohalla, Kiran Ponnanna alias Kiran, 22, Santosh Chengappa, 25 and VIjay, 26, all the three from Kutta in Kodagu district had meticulously planned to target lovers.

And, the reason whey they zeroed in on the couples was-whatever happened, they (lovers) wouldn’t dare to complain fearing parents or guardians wrath.

Encouraged, they had robbed 17 cellphones and cash to the tune of Rs 1.035 lakh, the police commissioner added. Barring three cases, the police haven’t received complaints in any other cases.

Deploying similar modus operandi, they entered into a wordy duel with Rajneesh Chandra when the latter was travelling towards Chamundi Hills on December 20 in his car. The youths accused him of brushing their four-wheeler, and demanded compensation to repair the damage. They also assaulted him and robbed Rs 400 in cash and a cellphone from him. Rajaneesh lodged a complaint in this regard at Nazarbad police station.

Similar cases had been reported from Mandi and K R Police stations, where a milk vendor and a youth had been robbed of Rs three lakh in cash and a cellphone respectively.
In all these cases, the accused had used a red car, helping cops to keep a tab on similar vehicles. That helped cops attached to Nazarbad police station on Tuesday came across the car near Hotel Lalithamahal Palace Helipad and the rest is history.

Interestingly, they had not sold the cellphones. And, the answer they gave was rather unusual, that they had decided to sell the gadgets after reaching a target of 100 handsets, for a huge sum. Police commissioner recalling their (accused) confession statement shared this answer with the media.

Acting on an  information provided by them, the police have arrested another youth Satish who is a co-accused in robbing that milk vendor.

Manju and Kiran were working in a shop dealing with home appliances and had stolen some mixies and pressure cookers too from that place.

Interestingly, the shop owner is yet to lodge a complaint in this regard, the police commissioner said.

According to preliminary investigation, the first four had also been working with a private security agency. However, the cops are in the process of extracting more information from them on this matter, the police commissioner added.