BENGALURU: South-East division police have arrested five members of a gang who were involved in more than 30 snatching cases in the city. Valuables worth `20 lakhs have been recovered from them.
The accused have been identified as Jayaprakash (22), Nithin Kumar (21), Jithendra (22), Kapil Kumar (25) and Nanda Kishore (33). “All four belong to the Bawariya community in Uttar Pradesh and are known as the Bawariya gang”, police said.
City police commissioner
T Suneel Kumar said, “We have been able to crack more than 30 chain snatching cases and have recovered 678 grams of gold chains (15 chains) along with a two-wheeler. There are two more people who are on
the run.” The police said, “The accused are from villages of Shamli district in Uttar Pradesh. They were involved in thefts at railway stations, robbery, dacoity and spurious liquor business. Since few years, they had started chain snatching in several metropolitan cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.”
“They used to come to the city and rent a house in an area where lower middle class people live. After this, they would steal a bike and keep it inside the house. They come to the city twice or thrice a month and snatch chains after which they return to Uttar Pradesh with the booty,” an officer said.
Chain snatching expert
Among the accused, Jayaprakash is known to be an expert in snatching chains. In the past three months, he has been involved in many chain snatches. The police cracked the case when they were able to identify Jayaprakash who snatched a chain in Kengeri.
He stayed at the crime spot for more than two minutes to ensure nobody was on the road and had also diverted attention of the victim before fleeing away. Jayaprakash is known to be very calm even when he is on the chain snatching spree. He is also a good runner who escapes in few minutes, a police source said. A CCTV footage of the act led to the arrest, a police source said. The police said, “He was involved in two-wheeler thefts in Karnal, Haryana and had been released on bail recently.”