Hyderabad: Three policemen were arrested along with six mobile phone thieves by the Panjagutta police on Tuesday. The policemen – Somanna working in the Gandhinagar police station, Sai Ram from the Saifabad police station, and Ashok, a home guard from the Gandhinagar police station – were allegedly facilitating a Jharkhand based gang of mobile phone thieves by bailing them out whenever they were caught by the Hyderabad police.
S M Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), West zone, Hyderabad police, said the main kingpin of the gang is Rahul Kumar Yadav of Theenpahar village Jharkhand. He formed a gang and deputed his gang members to various parts of the country such as Hyderabad, Surat, Lucknow, Ranchi, Belur, Chennai, Varanasi, Nagpur, Patna.
The gang members identify crowded places such as vegetable markets, Metro trains, religious processions etc., said the DCP. “The gang members identify gullible victims who keep their cell phones in shirt pockets and when the gang members give an additional cover to disturb the concentration, a trained person of the gang picks the cell phone from the pockets of victims and handover it to another person of the gang. To escape from apprehension immediately after committing theft, all the gang members will leave the place and go to another crowded place to commit cell phone theft,” said Vijay Kumar.
After committing theft of 50-60 mobile phones they would then inform the gang kingpin Rahul Kumar Yadav and he would send another person Mukhtar Singh to Hyderabad and other cities to collect the mobiles.
Mukhtar Singh would bring them to Jharkhand and they both together proceed to West Bengal and sell them to Bangladesh citizens near India- Bangladesh border, the DCP added. Four more members of the gang are absconding and efforts are on to apprehend them. “The police personnel helped gang members to get them released from police stations by taking money from the gang members as and when they were apprehended by the police,” the DCP said.
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