The interrogation of three members of a gang accused of carrying out robberies in Kochi last month seems to have fed the police with solid leads about the mastermind.
The police are now after one Noorkhan, a Delhi resident, who is suspected to have escaped to Bangladesh. According to the police, it was Noorkhan who directed the 10 other accused to reach Kochi to commit burglaries.
A special squad of the Kerala Police will now be sent to West Bengal to nab the remaining eight members of the gang believed to be hiding along the West Bengal-Bangladesh border.
The police were finding it tough to trace the gang members since the latter had destroyed most of their SIM cards and fled in different directions. Confirming that some members of the racket had fled to Bangladesh through West Bengal, a senior police officer said that the Kerala Police would coordinate with the Border Security Force (BSF) to trace their route and current location.
“Tracing the remaining members should be a tough task given that they have dispersed to different directions, while some of them have even fled the country,” officials said. According to the police, the accused used to get together once in a while, and the gang would travel to far-off places to commit burglaries after proper reconnaissance and marking of victims.
They would then share the loot and disperse to various places to trick the police.
Most gang members had working knowledge of Malayalam, which suggested that they had visited Kerala many a time. The police are also examining whether the gang had received local help in terms of day-time surveillance.
The police have obtained a transit warrant from the authorities in Delhi to bring the accused trio, currently in the custody of the Delhi Crime Branch, to Kerala. They will again be questioned after they are brought to Kochi on Sunday.
According to the police, a three-week-long inquiry based on mobile phone call records and CCTV footage featuring the accused helped the police team zero in on Arshad, one of the gang members.
While Arshad and Roni are natives of Bangladesh, Shehzad is from Bihar. The trio was arrested from Dilshad Garden area in north-east Delhi, known as a den of inter-State robbers.
