'Constable 111' behind bars

While the police were scratching their heads over the spurt in chain snatching cases, here is a police constable who made a windfall out of it.

P J Raju (badge number 111) attached to Ashokapuram police station has been arrested by K R Police on Saturday on charges of cheating and criminal breach of trust. He is a resident of K R Mohalla.

Sources said, Raju’s modus operandi was to knock on the doors of cab owners, asking them for vehicles on hire.

“The police department is hiring vehicles for a monthly rent of Rs 20,000 to nab chain snatchers. It’s a secret operation and none should disclose the matter of renting out the vehicles to police”, said Raju to the parties to win their confidence.

 Deploying the tactics he had secured 20 vehicles of different makes in a short span of four months. The vehicles included toyota qualis, scropio, tata xylo among others.

While he had pledged most of vehicles for money ranging from Rs one lakh to Rs two lakh, he had sold one or two four-wheelers, only to pay the owners and double their confidence in him.

He ran out of luck recently, when one of the cab owners Nissar Ahmed asked him to return the vehicle. When Nissar persistently demanded for the vehicle, Raju disclosed that he has pledged the vehicle with another party. It didn’t take much time for the word to spread that Raju had similarly cheated many.

Following a complaint, K R Police arrested Raju and booked him under sections 406 (breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of IPC. He was produced before a court and has been remanded in four day police custody.