The city police arrested 13 persons involved in three cases here on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crimes) V. Suresh Babu said that in one case, the Gopalapatnam police arrested eight persons for allegedly committing theft of 550 kg of brass items from Simhachalam Devasthanam Kalyana Mandapam.
The arrested were identified as K. Suresh (30), K. Mahesh (24), S. Srinivas (32), S. Sateesh (22), P. Apparao (40), V. Ramu (35), M. Rajasekhar Reddy (28) and A. Venkat Kumar (41), All belong to various parts of the district. Among the accused, Ramu, Rajasekhar and Venkat Kumar were the persons who received the stolen booty.
According to police, recently a bidder had purchased 665 kg of brass items in an auction from the Commissioner of the Endowment Department. On August 1, 2020, the bidder graded the brass items, packed them in 41 gunny bags and kept them in the Kalyana Mandapam to take them after clearing the payments. On October 9, the officials found that 34 bags of brass items weighing about 550 kg and worth ₹1,21,000 were stolen.
Based on the complaint from Assistant Executive Officer, Simhachalam Devasthanam, P. Rama Rao, on October 10, the police registered a case.
Under the guidance Police Commissioner Manish Kumar Sinha, the special police team that was formed to crack the case arrested four persons and recovered about 77 kg brass from them. On confession, the receivers were also arrested and rest of the stolen property was recovered. Police said that the accused melted the brass items into ingots. All the lost property was recovered.
In another case, the police arrested two youth M. Naveen (23) and G. Prakash (20), of Vizianagaram district, for allegedly lifting a bike belonging to a traffic constable from Visakhapatnam city. Police said that they had earlier committed several cattle thefts for easy money after being addicted to vices.
In the third case, the police arrested three persons for allegedly stealing two mobile phones.
