Fake cops held for robbing gutka vendors

Hyderabad: The Rachakonda's Special Operations Team (SOT) sleuths along with Ghatkesar police on Tuesday arrested five persons of a dacoity gang. who posed themselves as policemen and robbed gutka vendors on national highways.

The cops recovered property worth Rs 22.08 lakh including cash of Rs 3.51 lakh, 1,800 US dollars, 42.65 grams of gold ornaments, 2 four wheelers, 4 gunny bags of noxious gutka and 9 mobile phones from the accused.

According to Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M Bhagwat, arrested identified as Ananthula Veeranna (38), Mogulla Naresh (31), Gangadevi Prabhakar (28), Syed Amer (22) and Mohammed Fareed (25) and efforts are going on to nab the absconding culprit Rajnikanth of Nacharam.

The police said Veeranna and Naresh were earlier smuggling banned gutka products from Bidar of Karnataka and supplying the same to vendors in Warangal, Karimnagar and Jangaon at high profit.

However, their business ran into losses after they were arrested police once.

They later formed a gang and by posing themselves as police personnel, began looting other persons on Outer Ring Road (ORR), who were transporting gutka into Hyderabad from Bidar.

As per their plan, the accused waited in two four wheelers during night hours at Zaheerabad toll gate on September 11.

They intercepted a car near Keesara ORR which was transporting gutka and by threatening the persons in the car forcibly took Rs 60,000 and 2 mobile phones from them.

The same gang on September 19 intercepted a vehicle near Ghatkesar toll gate and posing themselves as Task Force sleuths of Hyderabad they looted two cars and Rs 1.5 lakh cash from them.

Later, the accused took them to nearby ATMs and forced the victims to withdraw more money for them.

The dacoity gang also took away 1,800 US dollars from one of the victims, apart from gold ornaments and also shifted 13 bags of gutka into their vehicle and warned them not to disclose the matter to anyone.

On credible information, the sleuths of SOT along with Ghatkesar police apprehended the five accused at Yamnampet crossroads on Tuesday and recovered the stolen properties.