CHENNAI: A total of eight knife-point robberies were reported in the city in the last three days, of which three were reported during the wee hours on Thursday. Around 12. 30 pm on Wednesday, Pramod, a resident of Elephant Gate, went to the temple at Krishnappa Tank Road. “A few metres away from the temple, two men on an Activa stopped him and robbed him of Rs 16,000 in cash and his mobile phone at knife-point. When the snatchers tried to escape on their vehicle, it skidded on the wet road and they fell down. As Pramod raised an alarm, the public nabbed the pillion-rider,” said a police source.
Later, police said the pillion rider was Ramesh, and have launched a hunt for his associate Murugan. Both are residents of Vyasarapadi.
Similarly, during the wee hours of Thursday, B Manikandaprabhu of Malliga Nagar, Krishna Nagar in Tambaram along with his friend Sri Vignesh Kumar, had gone to meet another person Moorthy at Choolai who was sick.
Vignesh and Manikandaprabhu were returning home around 1 am, when three men intercepted them at Turnbulls Road asking for their phone to make a call.
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When they refused to give the phone, one of the three men said it was an emergency. Believing this, the victim handed over his mobile phone to them. Then, the three men took out knives and threatened Manikandaprabhu and Vignesh to hand over their valuables. The trio looted two mobile phones and `4,000 in cash from them and escaped,” the source added.
When the duo raised an alarm, the passersby immediately alerted the Kotturpuram police station and a patrol team rushed to their rescue. The suspect – M Abbas, 26 and P Vicky alias Vigneswaran, 25 of Thousand Lights-–were nabbed and the police have launched a search for the remaining one person.
Around the same time at Vepery, Jagar Ahamed, 28 of Vysarapadi was riding his motorbike from work at Porur. “The techie was heading home via Vepery, when two men robbed his laptop, cell phone and gold c
Two and a-half-hours later, M Kanakaraj of Mandaveli, a vegetable vendor in the same locality, was robbed. “At around 3.25 am, I was heading to the Koyambedu market to buy vegetables. As I was riding on the R K Salai Bridge, two men intercepted me wearing helmets and first took away my vehicle keys. They grabbed my phone from the pocket and `17,000 in cash and threatened me not to tell anybody. One of them had coloured his hair but I did not see their face nor the bike registration number,” said Kanakaraj.
In the last three days, eight incidents of knife-point robberies have been reported leaving the police on their toes to trace the suspects. Police are scanning CCTV footages connected with all three incidents and have launched a search for the suspects.