The Girinagar police have arrested a body builder turned chain snatcher and his companion on Tuesday and recovered gold chains worth ₹6 lakh and two bikes used by them to commit crimes.
The accused have been identified as Syed Basha, 34, and his accomplice Sheikh Ayub, 32, from Ravindra Nagar, Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh.
Bhasha worked as a cab driver in Kuwait from 2005 to 2015, and was involved in gold smuggling while he was based there Kuwait, the police said. However, on his return to Andhra Pradesh, he took to chain snatching. There are over 20 cases pending against him in Hyderabad. He was also a body builder and had won the Mr. Andhra Pradesh title. He had taken to chain snatching to fund his vices and lavish lifestyle, police said.
Two bike-borne men had robbed a gold chain from an old woman in Girinagar in March. Analysing the CCTV footage of the incident, the police tracked down the bike used for the crime and realised it was a stolen bike. It was parked hidden in Timber Yard Layout. Anticipating that the gang will use the bike again for committing offences, the police planted a GPS on the bike. Expectedly, the gang which returned to the city recently took the bike out, alerting the police in the process. However, as the battery was low, the GPS got switched off sending the police teams tracking the bike on a mad scramble. However, soon multiple police teams patrolled the area and successfully tracked down the bike and arrested the two accused.
