Ongole: 10-member gang of highway robbers, drug smugglers held

Ongole: The Singarayakonda police have arrested a 10-member gang who committed dacoities and illegally transported ganja and other drugs to other States. Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, Prakasam District SP Siddharth Kaushal explained that based on complaints from various drivers on the gang resorting to highway robberies, Ongole DSP KVVNV Prasad formed three special teams and put the Ongole rural, SIngarayakonda, and Inkollu CI as in-charges.

The SP also formed another team at the control room to analyse the CC camera feed and find clues. Based on the tracking report of a mobile phone the robbers stole earlier, the police made a breakthrough and arrested M Naveen, A Ajith of Tada, A Muhammed of Kovur, V Ganesh and V Sai Sandeep of Sullurpet mandal in Nellore district at a granite firm near Tangutur and seized a car worth Rs 8 lakh, a knife and 7 kg of ganja from them.

Based on the information provided by the five accused, the police also arrested SD Rahman Basha of Tada for financing the thefts and robberies and seized a packet of ganja also from him. Subsequently, the accused informed about the involvement of four others, Ch Chandrasekhar and Ch Mahesh of Chittoor district, P Dinesh and K Swami Sridhar of Tamil Nadu in Chennai. The police seized a dummy pistol, 2KG of ganja and 850 grams of cocaine-like powder from them. The SP pointed out that the police have seized property worth Rs 9.75 lakh from the 10 accused. He appreciated the DSP KVVNV Prasad, Ongole rural CI P Subbarao, Singarayakonda CI M Srinivasa Rao, Inkollu CI Md Altaf, PCR CI Rambabu and their team members for successfully arresting the dacoits and drug smuggling gang.