Woman leader of rob-and-kill gang arrested in Bihar’s Vaishali district
The woman and her accomplice would hire SUVs and other vehicles from Patna-based agencies for outstation travel, kill the drivers after drugging them and flee after dumping the bodies at an abandoned place
patna Updated: Nov 16, 2017 20:28 IST
Hindustan Times, Hajipur
Police in north Bihar’s Vaishali district on Thursday arrested a woman leader of a gang, involved in lifting of vehicles after drugging and killing its drivers.
“Maya Madam, as she prefers to be known as, was arrested at Hajipur after weeks of surveillance across Vaishali and Patna districts,” Vaishali superintendent of police (SP) Rakesh Kumar and additional SP Ajoy Kumar said.
Her male accomplice Sanjiv Kumar was also arrested, the police officers told reporters at Hajipur, headquarters of Vaishali district, 22 km north of Patna. Three other members of her gang were absconding and raids were on to nab them, the officers added.
Disclosing their modus operandi, the officers said Khatoon alias Maya Madam and Sanjiv Kumar used “the simplest of stratagems to rob and kill”.
They would hire SUVs and other vehicles from Patna-based agencies for outstation travel, kill the drivers after drugging them and flee after dumping the bodies at an abandoned place, the officers said.
Police had recovered two firearms, four cartridges, two cellphones, a motorcycle, some medicines and a phial of injectable drug from the woman and her accomplice, the SP said.
The SP said the woman did not have any formal educated but carried herself well and was adept at driving all types of vehicles. She spoke Hindi fluently and could converse in broken English, the SP said. “Her son is pursuing degree course in a Delhi-based college,” he added.
“The woman and her accomplice have confessed to their involvement in at least six recent incidents of vehicle lifting on NH-77 that links Hajipur to Sonbarsa near India-Nepal border and at other places,” the SP said.
Police said one of the bodies recently recovered near Mahua in the district was that of a driver the gang had allegedly drugged and dumped. “We are trying find out if the gang was involved in killing of three other persons whose bodies had been recovered in the district recently,” the police added.
The SP said criminal gangs were known to engage woman as decoys. But this was probably the first time that a woman had been found to be the leader of the gang in Vaishali district, he added.