Chennai: Sharp intelligence work, helped by CCTV images from the two crime spots here, helped the crack teams of city police to nab the seven Rajasthani burglars fleeing by train with their booty of gold, diamonds and cash, on Sunday - within 24 hours of their committing the twin robberies.
“It is to our credit that we were able to nab the gang within 24 hours of crime. Even more significant is that we got the entire property stolen”, said Prem Anand Sinha, Additional Commissioner of Police (South), who led the special team formed to solve the two sensational burglaries suspected to have taken place during daylight.
“Ten teams had continuously worked through the night. We meticulously followed the CCTV footage obtained from the cameras in the two neighbourhoods that provided clear images showing the suspects were young men and they appeared to be from North India”, he told reporters at his office on Monday.
Flanked by senior members of his proud team, Sinha said the suspects appeared to be the same gang that might have done the September 2017 heist at Tambaram and decamped with 351 sovereigns of gold jewels and cash of `11 lakhs, which remained unsolved till now.
With the CCTV footages providing clear images of the suspects, the sharp intelligence of the probe teams took over the rest of the operation. “We found that the two robberies could have been done between 2 pm and 4 pm. Usually, these gangs flee with their booty by the quickest train heading home. We zeroed in on two trains and of them the Jaipur Express seemed the most probable choice, as it left Chennai at 5.10 the next morning.”
“We checked the location of the train and found it was two hours from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. The police at Ujjain, as well as the railway police, were contacted. They were told to check the entire train, particularly the unreserved compartments. They caught the seven men who matched the images we had sent them based on the CCTV images. The accused were offloaded from the train and a baggage search yielded recovery of the entire property stolen in the two cases. We are checking if there were others of this gang in some other compartments and who their leader is. Once we get them over here for questioning, we will get all the answers, including the definite clues to the unsolved 2017 robbery,” said Sinha.
“It’s the Third Eye that our Commissioner (A K Viswanathan) had been strongly propounding for prevention and detection of crime, that has played a major role in such quick solving of this case”, said the officer, stressing the need installing the cameras in their areas for safety and security.
