Police bust gang operating under 'social outfit' cloak

People were recruited to commit crime

Interrogation of Sathyanarayana, Imran, Anwar Shahid and Mudassir after their arrest earlier this month has revealed that Sathyanarayana alias ‘Anna’ was posing as the president of ‘Shramikara Vedike’ purporting to be a social organisation, DJ Halli police said. They alleged that he acted as a rallying point and also recruited people to commit crimes and paid them commission out of the money raised.

All the four arrested have been remanded in judicial custody. Police said cash and goods worth about Rs 38.4 lakh have been seized from the gang.

According to Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ashok Kumar, Imran, who already had several cases registered against him, was Anna’s main associate. Months of investigation after police first booked a case against Sathyanarayana in 2008 had culminated in the arrest of the four persons.

Police allege that Imran had been engaged in chain snatching, Anwar Shahid in bike stealing and Mudassir in theft.

Imran’s mother, according to police, would dispose of chains that he stole but he found it difficult to operate when the police began to keep a close watch on his movements.

Sathyanarayana then provided him with a motor-cycle to conduct his operations. After that Imran would hand over the chains he snatched to Sathyanarayana for disposal and receive a commission, police said. The commission Imran received ranged from Rs 5,000 to Rs 18,000, according to them.

Ashok Kumar said Jeshraj, a pawn broker in the area, had invited Sathyanarayana to his daughter’s wedding in Rajasthan and even given him flight tickets in recognition of his ‘standing in the locality.’ The ACP alleged that on the day of the marriage,
Sathyanarayana had stolen articles worth Rs five lakh from Jeshraj’s home.

All the bikes provided by Sathyanarayana reportedly have false registration numbers. “One of the bikes has an ‘F’ series registration, which only BMTC is allowed to have and another has ‘KA 04 HL...’ but the RTO has not begun issuing HL series registration numbers yet,” an officer explained.