The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the twin ATM robberies at Irumpanam and Koratty brought the two accused, arrested from Rajasthan and Haryana, to the Hill Palace police station at Thripunithura on Friday evening.
Haneef Khan, 37, of Mewat in Haryana and Nazeem Akbar, 24, of Jurehra in Rajasthan, have been arraigned as the first and third accused. They will be produced before the Thripunithura First Class Judicial Magistrate on Saturday.
Pappu Palsingh aka Pappy, the second accused who remains lodged in Tihar Jail after being arrested by the Delhi Crime Branch in a motorcycle theft case, will be produced in the Thripunithura court on November 14 based on a production warrant issued by the court.
The three arrested, whose custody the police will be seeking next week, were part of the six-member gang against whom five cases have been registered in five different police stations.
“Three weeks of hard work by the SIT led by Inspector of Police T. Uthamadas under the able guidance of Kochi Range Inspector General of Police Vijay Sakhare, and District Police Chief (Kochi City) M.P. Dinesh helped in the speedy identification and arrest of all the main accused. Arrangements have been made for tracing the remaining three accused hailing from Rajasthan and Haryana, and a team will be sent for nabbing them as soon as their whereabouts are known, P.P. Shams, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Thrikkakara, told the media.
He said the accused were involved in similar crimes in the past and were tracked with the help of the Cyber Cell by locating the mobile tower locations of the fake SIM cards they had used during the robbery. The CCTV footage collected from the ATM centres helped in identifying the accused.
All the accused are either drivers or cleaners of trucks used to transport new vehicles to Kerala. Illiterate and hardened criminals with several theft cases against them, they are also known to be good at long hours of night driving. Data regarding their criminal background is being collected. Mr. Uthamdas said that Pappy alone was an accused in 19 criminal cases in various north Indian States.
5 cases registered
A total of five cases have been registered against the accused spread over the three districts of Ernakulam, Thrissur, and Kottayam.
The cases in connection with the looting of ₹25 lakh and ₹10 lakh from the ATMs have been registered at the Hill Palace and Koratty police stations respectively, while one attempted ATM robbery each within the limits of the Kuravilangad and Kalamassery police stations and a vehicle theft have been registered by the Chingavanam police.
Their custody will be secured by the police from the courts for interrogation and evidence collection.