Dacoits loot two kg gold ornaments at City Railway Station; Three inter-State thieves arrested, gold recovered

Mysuru: The Mysuru Railway Police have cracked a case of dacoity, by arresting three accused and recovering 1.5 kg gold ornaments worth about Rs.45 lakh from them. The robbery had taken place in Cauvery Express at the Mysuru Railway Station on Oct.1, 2018.

The arrested are Ramesh Pattekar, Maruthi Pattekar and Ananth Dande of Maharashtra. The Police have launched a hunt to nab Banu Das Pattekar and Lakshman Pattekar, who are absconding.

The three accused were nabbed at Malangi and Valvada villages in Karjath taluk, Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra.

Out of the five accused, Maruthi, Lakshman and Banu Das are brothers and Ramesh is their cousin. Ananth Dande is the prime accused, who, along with others had committed the robbery.

The Mysuru Railway Police with the help from Karnataka State Railway Police and Railway Protection Force (RPF), after five months of operation, were successful in cracking the case, said Railways Superintendent of Police (SP) Bheemashankar S. Guled in a press conference yesterday.

Details: Naveen Kumar, a gold trader, purchases gold from Mumbai and has been selling it to various jewellery stores since many years.  

On Oct.1, 2018, Naveen, who arrived in Mysuru with about 3 kg gold from Mumbai, sold about 700 grams and came to Mysuru Railway Station with the remaining 2.3 kg gold ornaments  to go to Bengaluru.

At about 8 pm, Naveen boarded Cauvery Express in Platform No.6 and sat inside the S-7 coach which was empty. Meanwhile, two of the accused, who boarded the coach, caught hold of Naveen, tied him up and threatened him. They then snatched the bag containing gold ornaments and fled from the spot.

After snatching the gold bag, the two accused passed on the bag with three others who were standing on the platform and disappeared.

Shocked over the incident, Naveen, who alighted from the coach, began to search and not finding anyone there and not knowing what to do, saw Policemen at a distance and narrated the incident to them.

The Policemen initially did not believe that such large quantity of gold was robbed. But without wasting time, they conducted a preliminary investigation and found that Naveen was telling the truth. They later registered a case and when they went through the CCTV footage, they saw the robbers fleeing with the bag and they also got confirmed that the robbers were from outside the State.

The Railway Police took the case as a challenge and SP Bheemashankar S. Guled formed a Special Team led by Dy.SP N.T. Srinivas Reddy and launched ‘Operation Cauvery Express.’

The Special Team included Railway Police personnel and officers from Mysuru and other places. The team, which began its investigation, took the clues available on the day of crime and based on scientific proof, came to know that the accused were from Maharashtra.

The team then left for Maharashtra and with the help of local Police planned to arrest the accused.

They formed three teams and went to Ahmednagar, Sollapur and Pune, where they stayed put for months to trace the accused and were successful in nabbing three accused at Malangi and Valvada. The accused were working in an agricultural field as ordinary people but the way they robbed the trader and went absconding, they seem to be professional dacoits, said SP Bheemashankar.

Award for Police team

The team, comprising Mysuru Railway Inspector N. Jayakumar, Bengaluru Railway Inspector M.N. Nagaraju, Bengaluru Cantonment Circle Inspector Lakshminarayana Prasad, Sub-Inspectors R. Jagadish, Gurunath Hadimani, G.R. Dileep, Mudiyappa, Sharanabasava Biradar, Shalam Hussain and staff Papanna, B.S. Mohan, Balaji, P. Fayaz Khan, B.S. Pradeep, Srinivasa Murthy, C.T. Madhu, S.M. Naveen Kumar, C.N. Chethan, R. Jagadish, G.A. Vijayakumar, B.N. Yoganand, H.J. Appegowda, Prabhu Goni, S.P. Puttaswamy and K.B. Manjunath, which took part in ‘Operation Cauvery Express’ and succeeded in nabbing the accused, was given cash prize and appreciation certificate by SP Bheemashankar. Dy.SP N.T. Srinivas Reddy and RPF officials were present.

Accused were waiting since a week to rob trader

According to Railway Police, the accused did not rob Naveen for any other valuables, they committed the robbery only after confirming that he (Naveen) was carrying a large quantity of gold with him. The accused had collected information that Naveen used to purchase gold in Mumbai and then sell the same to various shops in Mysuru.

The accused had seen Naveen showing gold ornaments at various jewellery shops in Mysuru after following him and only then they conspired to rob him. After Naveen sold about 700 grams of gold ornaments at a shop and packed the remaining in a bag and came to the Railway Station to go to Bengaluru.

The accused, who followed him, saw him boarding Cauvery Express and after confirming that Naveen was alone, the accused committed the crime, the Railway Police added.