NELLORE: It was a ribbon usually tied around a newly purchased car delivered from a showroom that led to the cracking of the sensational robbery case on the national highway near Tada in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh in February this year. With no clues initially in the case to trace the accused, Superintendent of Police Aishwarya Rastogi made efforts to track a brand new vehicle that they suspected to be used by the accused. Of the six arrested, five are members of Khanjarabat gang and the remaining one was the receiver of the property.
Police, however, could recover only Rs 75 lakh cash as the accused had disposed of the stolen mobiles in neighbouring Bangladesh for a cheap rate. The robbery took place on February 12 when a container bearing registration number DL-01-M-6297 with a consignment of Xiaomi mobile phones worth Rs 4.80 crore from Sri City located at Tada was on its way to Kolkata.
“The robbers hijacked the container after stopping it and pushing the driver out of the vehicle. They shifted the consignment to another vehicle and abandoned the original container at a Dhaba in Gowravaram and fled with the consignment,’’ he said. Going through the CCTV footage at the toll plazas revealed that a car was piloting the container since it started near Tada and the occupants in the vehicle hijacked container and robbed it, a police officer said.
Special teams sent to Indore nabbed two of the accused Ankit Srivatsav and Pawan Chowdary. They are members of the Khanjarbhat gang, police said. The police also arrested three others Pradeep Madhavan, Sukesh Hadas and Santhosh of the gang and also an international smuggler Shaik Hamidujuman alias Tithu of Kachandarpur in West Bengal.