They used to strike couple of months before Diwali

Celebrating Diwali on a grand scale appears to be the motivation for the dreaded ‘Chaddi’ gang, that created panic amongst the denizens with a series of house burglaries in the State capital in the past several months.

The Rachakonda police apprehended three members of the gang from Sahada village in Dahod district in Gujarat .

Loot and scoot

The ‘Chaddi’ gangs have been coming here from Gujarat by train for the past several years -- two months before Diwali - and committing burglaries and decamp with the booty to their home State and have gala celebrations.

Rachakonda Commissioner of Police Mahesh. M. Bhagwat said there were at least four such gangs, which come to the Telugu States for committing offences and one such gang was arrested in Gujarat and brought to the city after looking out for the past several months.

The arrested were identified as Parmar Kishan, his brother Parmar Ravoji and their cousin Ganava Bharath Singh of Sahada village.

“Back home they are daily wage earners and here they are involved in 28 house burglaries by night, including 15 cases in Andhra Pradesh and eight in Rachakonda,” he said, adding that they never commit any offence in their home State and have no criminal record. As a result, nabbing them was difficult.

According to Mr. Bhagwat, one Ramji Bade formed the gang 15 years ago and in 2010 they split into four separate gangs to commit the offences in Hyderabad and AP.

Ramji, Suresh, Dinesh and the arrested Kishan - kingpins of four groups - hire the villagers to commit offences, he said and added that they also come to Hyderabad during Sankranti.

Modus operandi

According to Mr. Bhagwat, the gang’s modus operandi is to take shelter in the nearby forest area and recce the surroundings and select the locked houses during day.

“After midnight, they wrap their clothes around the waist and hold slippers in hand and break into the houses,” he said. They pelt stones if locals try to catch them, the officer said.

Earlier, Mr. Bhagwat said their teams visited Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and finally traced their movements in Gujarat.

The police recovered 100 grams of gold ornaments, one kg of silver articles, ₹3,000 and bows and arrows from their possession.

When the police tried to nab them, the accused attacked their vehicles with arrows.