HYDERABAD: Is the notorious ‘chaddi gang’ back? Footage of two persons entering an apartment in Nizampet in their undergarments has sparked off fresh fears. The Cyberabad Police are not sure, as the ‘real’ chaddi gang does not leave without committing an offence. Also, members of chaddi gang are known to carry knives or stones, which people seen in the CCTV footage gathered from the apartment did not have. Chaddi gang members were last spotted in January at Meerpet, when the gang of eight burgled the house of an IT employee but failed in its attempt on a neighbouring house.
They then pelted stones on the apartment watchman who tried to catch them. Reports of their return started doing rounds on Monday after the watchman of Sri Rama Apartments raised alarm as his room was latched from outside. When the apartment residents checked CCTV footage, they found two men in underwear moving around the cellar. They had jumped over the compound wall and latched the watchman’s door from outside. They then tried going upstairs, but couldn’t make it beyond the iron grill gate that was locked. They loitered around for about four minutes, then noticed their image on a screen displaying CCTV recordings and left. “While one of them was in his vest and briefs, other was wearing just a chaddi.
The duo had covered their faces and had applied lubricants to make catching or identifying them difficult,” said a police official. Though cops are probing the matter, they suspect the residents panicked seeing the men in underwear. Bachupally inspector K Balakrishna Reddy said that teams are working on clues available from CCTV visuals in that area to identify the route taken by them. “It could be the burglars from other gangs also, who pretended to be the chaddi gang,” said Madhapur DCP A Venkateshwar Rao.