Sambalpur: Robbery gang in police custody, 28 Robbers arrested
Sambalpur/Jujumura: A gang of dacoits used to steal drinking water pipes and sell them outside the state. Some of the miscreants in the gang were doing checking first. Later, a group of 15 to 20 robbers used to come to the place of the pipe with a truck, load it and leave. While this gang is active all over the state, the Sambalpur police have achieved great success. 28 people of this gang have been arrested by Sambalpur Special Squad and Jujumura Police.
According to the information, the organization called KEC is working in Redhakhol Constituency to take care of drinking water supply. The stock yard of the said firm is near Jujumura Thana Amlipani village. Last July 15th, late at night, a gang of 25 to 30 robbers came in 2 trucks and a Balero. Armed with guns and various weapons, they entered the stockyard and tied up the security guards and other employees and locked them in the store room. Then 550 pieces of DI pipe of 100 mm (diameter) was looted and ran away. The length of the pipes was 5.5 meters and the value of the looted pipes was Rs 36 lakh. After filing a written complaint on behalf of the company at Jujumura police station on the 16th, the police registered a case and started investigating the incident.
The arrested accused are Raju Naik (24), Biju Naik (20), Bunty Naik (20), Rajesh Naik (19), Ranjit Bhoi (20), Hari Dehuri (22), Sangram Barik (18), Ramesh Parida (35), Basudev Naik (22), Hemant Prusty (24), Vishabhushan Mahapatra (22), Vikas Kumar Naik (23), Rakesh Mahapatra (21), Dharmanand Sahu (20), Kishore Prusty (32), Dhirendra Naik (20), Vijay Barik (24), Ruchika Bhoi (40), Amulya Naik (20) of Cuttack Bank Police Station Tulsipur. Bighneswar Das (20), Purnchandra Behera (35), Suraj Singh (36), Sanjay Yadav (28), Anirudh Yadav (33), Dilip Pawan (34) and Ramshankar Maurya (52) from Jajpur. The 2 accused who bought the pipe are Maink Mittal (36) and Mahip Mittal (40). All the accused were arraigned on Tuesday. Three trucks, one pick-up, one country pistol, 10 pieces of pipe, Rs 40,000 in cash and five mobile phones were seized from them.
Three days before the robbery, the head of the gang, Raju Nai (Rajkishore), Cuttack Banki, came to Sambalpur side with his three accomplices. After seeing the Amlipani stock yard, Raju sent the truck when he talked to a party in West Bengal for the sale of pipes. According to the plan, the pipe was looted and send to West Bengal. The police team could not even find any clue. However, a few days later, the police received information from a reliable source that Raju’s robbery gang was planning to commit a similar robbery in Sambalpur area. After receiving the information, 5 police teams were specially formed. When Raju came towards Sambalpur in three trucks and a pick-up, the police team surrounded them and arrested all the accused near Hatibari on Monday. A police team went to Howrah and arrested 2 accused who had bought pipes, the police froze their account, which contained 56 lakh 59 thousand rupees.
