By Violet Pereira, Team Mangalorean 

Mangalore : A  gang of seven members originally from Tamilnadu and residing in Bangalore, who were involved in interstate dacoity have been arrested by Belthangady police on June 4 at Charmadi Ghat in Bantwal Kadoor Highway.

On May 30 the gang driving a Tata safari intercepted and attacked Bhagat Singh when he was driving his car (KA 19 -1165) on the ghat section. After spraying chilly powder on Singh they stole his ATM card, Samsung mobile phone and Rs 6,640/- cash and fled.

To investigate this issue and to find out who the culprits were, SP Goel formed a special investigation team under  the able leadership  of ASP M N Anuchet, Belthangady CPI N G Bhaskar Rai and ASP Yogish Kumar. On June 4, when the gang were travelling by Tata Safari, in Charmadi Ghat, they were arrested by the special investigation team. N Basavaraju (23yrs), N Lokesh (24Yrs), Saroja (44 yrs), Kavita (28yrs), Manjula Ratna (35yrs), Srinivas alias Sheena ( 25yrs), and Ganesh (25yrs) were the persons arrested.  Two long knives, Two iron rods, chilly powder, Tata safari worth (Rs. 11,00,000/- ), stolen ATM card, mobile set and the cash looted from Bharath Singh was recovered. 

Further investigation revealed that the gang was involved in interstate dacoity, and have committed a number  of crimes in Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra states. The same gang was booked for crime and was wanted  in Malur Police station, Kolar district under section 229/2007, 41(1) D, 102 CRPC and 379 IPC.

Under the directions of SP Goel the team of B N Nagraj, CPI Bhasker Rai, PSI Belthangady Yogish Kumar, Punjalakatte PSI Madhava Koodlu, PSI Girish, Jagadish Reddy, H C Kushalappa,  Dayananda, KA Bhaskar, Praveen, Sundar Shetty, Shashidhar, Mahesh, Shivananda and B N Bhudki Kanakaraj were successful in nabbing the gang.

The Tata safari which was registered in the name of Lokesh had been bought by the gang by paying cash money. N Basavaraj and Lokesh are the sons of Saroja who is one of the accused in this crime.