Visakhapatnam: Vizag city seems to be turning out to be a place of refuge for inter-state and inter-district criminal gangs after they have engaged in their nefarious activities in the neighbouring states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand.
Though the cops have arrested a few of those holed up in the city, they have been finding new ways to stay and also commit crimes in the city.
The Odisha police recently arrested notorious gangsters, Sushil and Sushant Dhal Samant, and recovered from them state-of-the-art firearms, including a carbine, luxury cars and large amounts of cash.
The gangster brothers, who were wanted for murders, extortion and arms racket cases in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and other states, confessed that they had lain low for a while in Vizag.
The Odisha cops, with the assistance of the Vizag police, had been surprised to recover a pistol, 35 rounds of ammunition, some cash and a laptop from a house at Kirlampudi Layout in Vizag, the gangsters’ hideout.
ACP (Task Force) I Chitti Babu said that gangs were picking Vizag for its relatively peaceful atmosphere, it being the big city occurring on the entire stretch between Howrah and Chennai and for relatively easy access to it from the neighbouring areas.
Sources in the police said that they had arrested over six inter-state gangs and over a dozen inter-district gangs in the past few months, who had confessed that they had moved to the city for shelter.
Smugglers of ganja and gold and those involved in fake currency circulation had also been moving to Vizag city, giving the city police a wake-up call. With rapid urbanisation, particularly in the city’s outskirts, the criminals were hiring apartments for hideouts, they added.
