Mysuru: Festival season is on and a special gang has come to target women who wear gold chains in Mysuru. The gang specialises in chain-snatching and usually snatch gold chains either by attention diversion or by using force. The gang includes women members too.

One among the gang members was arrested in city yesterday by the Krishnaraja Police and she has been identified as 25-year-old Saritha. Gold chains worth Rs. 6,50,000 has been seized from her possession. She was arrested on grounds of suspicious behaviour on Basaveshwara Main Road. On questioning, she revealed to the Police that she was attempting to sell the gold chains.

Her full name is Saritha Kashinath, a resident of Bapujinagar in Kalaburagi. On interrogation, Saritha told the Police that she hailed from Kalaburagi and had come to Mysuru with a special mission — to rob women. The Police also learnt that specialised gangs have come to the city from Solapur in Maharashtra.

Police say that around 10 members including five women have come to the city from Solapur and are living in shanties along the ring road. Apart from chain-snatching, the gang also specialises in house breaking and robbery.

Interrogating Saritha, the Police discovered her modus operandi. Police said that Saritha’s victims were women bus passengers. “She would wait at the bus stop. While on board, she snatched chains and other valuable ornaments from other women passengers,” Cops said. Police have recovered as many as seven gold necklaces, totally amounting to 233 grams in gold. Some of the ornaments include black pearl necklaces, mangal -sutras and design bead chains.  

Police said that the gang members target women who visit temples. “This is festival season and many women visit temples with heavy jewellery. They identify their targets near crowded areas and three to four women surround the target while one woman is an expert in snatching chain. The chain-snatcher first puts her sari pallu on the victim’s shoulders and diverts her attention. She later deftly snatches the chain and immediately mixes with the crowd.

Saritha told the Police that she had snatched 6 chains atop the Chamundi Hill and had sold them to one Asim of Agrahara. She was attempting to sell other two chains when she was caught.

After establishing that one of the gold chains that Saritha had snatched belonged to one Vijayalakshmi, a resident of Dattagalli, the Police handed back her chain. Vijayalakshmi told the Police that at the Chamundi Hill on Ashada Friday, she was standing in the queue felt that an ant had bitten her neck. “My gold chain was snatched before I turned and I could not even realise the theft. Only later I realised that my chain has been snatched,” she told the Police.