Police have arrested dacoits in Tirupur after they robbed mobile phones worth Rs 16 lakh by threatening a businessman with knives, sickles and other weapons and en route to go to Goa with the money.
Tirupur: In a shocking incident, a businessman in Tirupur was robbed of Rs 16 lakh by unidentified miscreants after threatening him with a knife.
There are a number of shops on Kamakshi Amman Koil Road behind the Tirupur Central Bus Stand. Many people from the northern state run shops here.
Hathmat Singh, a resident of Rajasthan, runs a home appliance shop. At around 7.30 pm yesterday, a group of four armed men entered the shop with weapons and threatened Hadmat Singh with weapons and demanded money.
When he refused to pay the money, the gang continued to loot the cash from the locker, his mobile phones and got into the car along with three others who were ready in the car outside and escaped.
Tirupur South police, who came to know about the robbery in the densely populated area, conducted an investigation. It was found that a gang of seven had looted the money and fled in a car.
The police, who seized cctv footage, stopped the car and quarrelled with the youths thinking that they were being followed by two-wheeler-borne youths behind the gang.
As the neighbours shouted slogans, the robbers who stopped the car near the vidyalayam, separated the two men and five in Bharathi Nagar, mingled with the people and fled. The police checked the car parked at the vidyalaya.
It was found that fake number plates were pasted on the number plate on either side of the car. Inside the car, there was a big sword, a mobile phone, a liquor bottle and a sticker of police.
All this was seized by the police.
It is learnt that the seized car has a Chennai registration number and the owner is in Tirupur. On the orders of Tirupur Police Commissioner Praveen Kumar Abhinav, three special squads led by K V R Nagar Assistant Commissioner Karthikeyan and south inspectors Ganesan and Bhadra and SI Vijayakumar were formed to investigate the matter.
As a first step, they investigated the registration number of the trapped car. It was learnt that the car was rented by Jayapandi, a native of Kodikambam in Tirupur. For the past five years, he has been running a biryani shop on a trolley. He was questioned by the special forces.
Jayapandi's wife Nirosha's younger brother Sakthivel said he had to go for a friend's delivery. Believing this, Jayapandi had rented a car from Kannan for Rs 3,000.
The special squad, which rushed to Coimbatore and Sivagangai in search of the gang, nabbed two persons involved in the case and interrogated them at an undisclosed location.
Sakthivel, the husband of a woman constable posted at the Race Course police station, and his friends Azhagar, Vasu, Jayapandi, Thavam and Sivamani have been arrested.
Hatmat Singh had been working on kamakshi amman koil road along with the home appliances shop as well as an additional money transfer. He used to take unaccounted money from the people of the northern states in Tirupur and transfer the money there to the places told by them and get a commission for the same.
He has been doing this for the last two years. For lakhs of rupees, he used to earn between Rs. 100 and Rs. 200. Many states like Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi and Gujarat have been transferred. Knowing this, a gang of robbers led by Sakthivel planned and staged the robbery.
According to the police, Katmat Singh had staged the robbery on the grounds that he would not file a complaint and had planned to go to Goa with the looted money and divide the money there.
While four of those arrested were produced before the Tirupur court, the police said they were on the lookout for the absconding accused and two of those arrested were taken to Coimbatore for interrogation.