ANANTAPUR: Anantapur district police arrested four members of a notorious Kerala gang, involved in a highway robbery under Rapthadu police station limits on February 23. The police also recovered Rs 1.89 crore cash, five mobile phones, and 13 number plates.Disclosing the details of the case on Friday, district Superintendent of Police Fakeerappa Kaginelli said they took the case as a challenge and launched ‘Operation Ananta’.
They took up the tedious task of inspecting footage of CCTV cameras set up in 400 km radius of Rapthadu. Details of thousands of vehicles that passed through 40 toll gates were collected and analysed. Once they confirmed that the highway robbery at Rapthadu involved members of Sreedharan gang of Kerala, infamous for highway robberies, particularly hawala money, 25 special teams were sent to five different states to trace the criminals.
Under the supervision of additional SP E Nagendrudu, DSPs G Prasad Reddy, B Srinivasulu, S Mehaboob Basha, and hundreds of police personnel participated in the Operation.The arrested were identified as Kolapurambil Abhu Nishad (40) of Ernakulam district, Jackson Philip (29) of Kottayam village, Kannan Riyagu (25) of Alappuzha, and Othawath Shamim (38) of Vadakar village.Police also arrested Bharat and Ramachandra, who were involved in transporting hawala money to Bengaluru from Hyderabad. The SP said they are trying to trace the origin of hawala money.