Barely two weeks after five cases of motorbike-borne miscreants relieving women of their jewellery were reported in an hour, another serial chain snatching incident was reported from the city on Thursday morning.

This time, the miscreants targeted two women at separate places within a radius of 6 km in a span of 80 minutes.

According to police records, this is the third such incident reported since July.

According to Kancharapalem police, two motorbike-borne miscreants snatched a gold chain weighing 20 gm from 67-year-old K. Lakshmi Kondamma in NGGOs Colony at around 7.30 a.m. when she went for her morning walk.

After Kancharapalem, the same gang reportedly reached Pidaparthivari Street in Dabagardens area under II-Town police station limits where they made good with a 15gm gold chain from a school teacher.

“The miscreants reportedly targeted Annapurna from Kancharapalem, who works in a private school at Dabagardens, after she got down from an auto-rickshaw, barely 50 metres away from the school gate,” II-Town Inspector G.V. Ramana said.

In both the incidents, the police said, the crimes were committed in isolated areas.

Even as the victims tried to raised alarm, the offenders fled on the motorbike.

Soon after the incidents, police teams inspected the scenes of crime and conducted searches. But, their attempts to nab the offenders turned futile. It is learnt that the police have retrieved CCTV footage from several areas.

“The person who was driving the motorbike wore a helmet while the pillion rider wore a cap to cover his face,” ACP (East) Annepu Narasimha Murthy, said after inspecting the scene of crime at Dabagardens.

50 cases this year

As per the crime department, around 50 chain snatching cases have been reported from the city this year so far and many of these are still in various stages of investigation. But, the police are yet to make a breakthrough.

On July 19, four chain snatching cases were reported in 45 minutes within a radius of 4 km in Marripalem area. On October 12, five similar cases came to light in an hour.

According to police, the offenders often use stolen bikes to commit such crimes and wear helmet, making it difficult for police to identify them from CCTV footage.

“Retrieving the fingerprints in such cases is also a tough task. Special teams have been constituted to investigate the cases,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (crimes) A.R. Damodhar said.