Warangal: Kodakandla police on Wednesday arrested six members of a gang who posed as Naxals and extorted money from their victims.
They robbed a bag containing Rs 6.7 lakh from two employees of a wine shop on January 15. They fired two shots into the air with a country-made gun and aimed the gun at them. Scared, the victims had no option but to hand over the money bag. They later reported the incident to their owner and then police.
The gang members were identified as Islavath Shankar, Naraboina Mallesh, Gangapuram Swamy, Pittala Srinivas, Chiluri Paramesh, and Saripangi Viplav.
The police recovered three country-made guns and 10 bullets from them along with '5.56 lakh in cash and 11 mobile phones.
Giving details, Warangal police commissioner V. Ravinder said one of the accused Islavath Shankar previously had links with a Naxal-affiliated party and wanted to earn some money in the name of the party. He formed a gang with the rest of the members and procured arms.
They plotted to rob a wine shop on the night of December 31 when the liquor sales are high. However, they had to call off the plan as there were too many people on the roads and the wine shop owners took time to come out of the shops. They then decided to target the wine shop on Sankranti day.
Accordingly, they observed the movements of the employees of Tirumala Wines at Ramannagudem in Kodakandla and decided to waylay them on the Palakurthy road on the outskirts of the village.
While one of the gang members surveyed the wine shop, the others waited outside the village. When the owner and the employee started from the wine shop towards Palakurthy, the gang member waiting outside the shop alerted the rest of the gang.
As planned, the members blocked the way of the wine shop owner and his employees and posing as Naxals, forcibly took the money from them.
The police formed ten special teams and launched a manhunt.
On receiving information that Islavath Shankar, Mallesham and Swamy were at Cheruvumundu thanda, the police took them into custody. The other three were arrested from Chennur village. Weapons and the stolen money were recovered from them.
