4-member gang lands in police net hours after looting house

Coimbatore: A gang of four robbers were nabbed within hours of committing crime and the entire loot was recovered here on the early hours of Wednesday.
A police constable and a volunteer of 'Friends of Police' intercepted the stolen car in which the gang was fleeing on Pollachi-Dharapuram Road and nabbed one of the robbers. District superintendent of police (SP), Pa Moorthy, caught hold of the remaining three in a government bus at Jallipatti near Negamam.

The gang robbed 15 sovereigns of gold ornaments, Rs 10, 000 cash, a TV and a car from 78-year-old L Arumugam, a farmer from Negamam in rural Coimbatore. "The gang robbed the house around midnight. We nabbed all the four and recovered the stolen goods worth Rs 7.7 lakh by 5.30am," the SP Pa said.

The arrested were identified as P Sundhan, 22, of Marungapuri in Trichy district, K Kanagaraj, 29, and P Selvaraj, of Manapparai in Trichy and A Anand, 26, of Ponnamaravathy in Pudkottai district.

According to police, when Arumugam's son Sri Praburam came out of the house around midnight to vomit, two strangers with wooden logs threatened to kill him and barged into the house.

Hearing the noise, Arumugam and his wife Karpagam woke up. However, by the time two more robbers entered the house. They took the valuables, including gold ornaments from Karpagam, and fled in Praburam's car.

Praburam then informed the police. "We immediately alerted all the police stations in the district and intensified vehicle checking to locate the car ,'' a police officer said.

Constable Gnanaprakash and Friends of Police volunteer Vijay intercepted the stolen car on Pollachi-Dharapuram Road. However, three of the miscreants escaped after the police stopped them. They were later nabbed from a Udumalpet- Ooty bus at Jallipatti bus stop.