Hyderabad: Mewat gangs behind most ATM break-ins

Mewat is a region in Haryana covering 1,860 sqkm falls under Nuh district. This region has earned a lot of infamous reputation amongst the Hyderabad city police because the increasing number of ATM thefts in and around the city are linked to the offenders from Mewat.

Sudakhar Reddy, an Inspector, said that in the recent thefts of cash from ATM machines, it was found that most of the burglars belonged to the Mewat region. He noted, "Very recently a team of officers from the city went to the region to nab the offenders, but they faced a lot of resistance from the locals. The drawback of this region is that the locals do not allow police to enter their area to arrest the offender as they keep throwing chili powder, block their path by throwing stones, wooden planks, chairs etc.…. and the offenders who are mostly from this region know it very well that once they commit and offence and go back to their area then they can go scot-free."

Another officer on condition of anonymity said that the villages in Mewat house these criminals and collect commission from them. Also, most of the criminals, though not being from Mewat, know about the specialty of it and if the criminal gangs are from neighboring areas then they seek refuge in Mewat after committing the crime by paying a share from their bounty. The most challenging part for the city police is that the local police also does not support them even when they are informed about the miscreants. Instead of providing the city police cover, they just tell the teams to be on their own.

The cop tells that, "In most of the ATM theft cases, the culprits are daily wage labourers but they know the technique of cutting ATM machines with help of gas cutters. Moreover, after committing the offence, they use the wrong number plate for their vehicles or hide it with plaster in order to escape from the scene of offence and seek refuge in Mewat region by travelling half-way on their vehicles and by hitchhiking on some trucks."

Though the Hyderabad police department has time and again informed bank officials to deploy security guards at ATM centres which are at isolated spots, the officials have not taken the advice seriously and even till date there are no security guards at most of the ATMs at isolated spots, added the officer.