Chennai: Chennai police arrested two youths and a pawnbroker shop owner in connection with series of chain snatching and robbery incidents in Ashok Nagar and nearby areas on Friday.
The two were ‘guided’ by the pawnbroker to commit crimes, police said. Police tracked the suspects with a clipping from a CCTV, installed by the members of the residents’ welfare association in Ashok Nagar.
Police recovered 30 sovereigns of gold jewellery and cash from them. The accused S. Thameem Ansari, 20 and Arjunan, 20, of Thousand lights were acting based on the instructions of G. Kishore Kumar, 42, who runs a pawnbroker shop in Thousand Lights.
Police teams traced the suspects’ photograph through the CCTV footage recorded at a building. The duo tried to flee after snatching three sovereigns of gold chain from a school teacher Sridivya, when she was returning from school two weeks ago.
On August 25, they had snatched a gold chain from Mala, 37, a resident of Ashok Nagar. Investigators circulated the CCTV footage of this incident to all the police personnel Whatsapp groups to trace the suspects. One of the police teams narrowed down on them when they were traveling on a bike.
During enquiry they revealed the involvement of the pawnbroker Kishore. Police picked up Kishore and during questioning he confessed to having indulging in criminal activities to earn easy money. During interrogations they confessed that they targeted women and senior citizens. “Kishore would go to the house of one of the the two to pick up the stolen gold and paying them 50 per cent of the money initially. Since he owns a pawn broker shop, it was easy for him to sell the stolen jewels,” police noted.
Ashok Nagar residents had installed 120 CCTV cameras in their neighbourhood recently. “It helped us to track the two suspects,” police noted.
