Chandigarh:The UT police claim to have busted the Bawaria gang with the arrest of its three members and recovered of 21 gold chains and two motorcycles. The police said the gang had been active in Chandigarh for past few months. The police have solved 24 cases of snatching and two-wheeler theft with the arrest.

All the three gang members were produced in the court on Wednesday which remanded them to three days in police custody.

They have been identified as Ashok Kumar (32), alias Bellu, alias Punjabi, the kingpin, who was unemployed and a Class IX dropout. The second one Rajesh Kumar (23) is also Class IX dropout and the third is Dev Kohli, alias Hunny (25Class VII pass out. All the three are natives of Bawaria village in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh. The police claimed that the village was full of notorious families and the gang members were active in other states as well.

Crime Branch DSP Pawan Kumar said, “They are professional criminals and have criminal records in Haryana and Delhi.

During interrogation, both the accused have disclosed that they have snatched a number of gold chains and stolen two-wheelers in Chandigarh as well as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and other parts of India.”

He said the Crime Branch team headed by Inspector Gurmukh Singh along with Sub-Inspector Ashok Kumar and Head Constable Kanwar Pal intercepted the gang members at a checkpost under the overbridge of the Sector 11/15 dividing road and during checking the team apprehended two persons, Ashok Kumar and Rajesh Kumar, riding a Splendor motorcycle. The registration certificate of the two-wheeler was found fake following which the police arrested the two gangsters. On their disclosure statement, the third accused Dev Kohli, alias Hunny, was also arrested.

The police claimed that the recent series of snatchings held in Sectors 37 and 38 were conducted by this gang.

Modus Operandi

Before proceeding to Chandigarh, they first paid obeisance to their spiritual deity to seek blessings. Thereafter, they all switched off their mobile phones and travelled in boats from their village to cross the Yamuna to avoid main roads and to hide their identifications from the Haryana and UP Police.

Thereafter, they entered the tricity and after committing snatchings and vehicle thefts, sometimes they stayed in rented accommodations in different locations of the tricity. After committing 5-6 crimes, they returned to their village and after a gap of 4-5 days, they again adopted the same modus operandi. In Chandigarh, they struck the southern sectors in order to leave the city easily after committing the crime.

They used to target specially pedestrian women wearing gold chains and by making excuse of asking for the location of a particular place, they suddenly got close to the target to snatch the gold chains and flee on the motorcycle.

Thereafter, they disposed off the snatched gold chains to a local jeweller, Chattar Singh, who is presently lodged in Ambala Jail. His production warrant has been obtained for March 15. After the arrest of Chattar Singh, they were searching for a new receiver for disposing off the snatched chains but failing which they hid these chains at different places.

For more news updates Follow and Like us on Facebook