The Chittoor police on Tuesday alerted people in the eastern mandals bordering with Tamil Nadu to be alert about strangers moving on sports bikes on rural roads, and immediately inform the area police if they found any suspicious movements.
A chain-snatching incident on the Srikalahasti-Pichatur road under the KVB Puram police station on Monday, in which an elderly woman suffered minor injuries, created a flutter. Two youth on a high-end motorcycle without a registration plate were seen moving on the isolated road, away from the Puttur-Chennai NH. The duo, suspected to be from Tami Nadu, allegedly attacked an elderly woman while she was going to her village, and decamped with a gold chain weighing 16 gm in a flash.
Immediately after the attack, the residents informed the area police, who scrutinised the CCTV footage at vital junctions. “Except for one side angle at one junction, the duo’s movement was not recorded anywhere in other junctions. This shows that they made themselves thorough with the digital surveillance network and are targeting rural areas without CC cameras,” sub-inspector of KVB Puram police station D. Gopi said.
It is suspected that some motorcycle-borne youth from Tamil Nadu had allegedly formed into groups to indulge in chain-snatchings. Their modus operandi is to not only target lonely women pedestrians, but also women pillion riders. The mandals of Puttur, Nagari, Nindra, Nagalapuram, Pitchatur, Varadaiahpalem and Satyavedu in the Chittoor police division, which border with Tamil Nadu are targeted by the gangs, as afaer committing a crime they can cross into Tamil Nadu within 15 minutes.
