Chennai: Police arrest all 10 robbers who struck at Red Hills house

CHENNAI: Police used their cellphone locations to track down and arrest on Saturday night the 10 men who barged into an isolated house near Red Hills and, at knifepoint, robbed the residents of 15 sovereigns of gold jewellery, Rs 0,000 in cash and two cellphones on August 5.


Soon after the robbery at Venkatesan’s house at Balaji Nagar in Padianallur, police examined the records of the nearest telecom tower and found five cellphone numbers that weren’t usually present in the location.

The police also checked CCTV footage from the area and noticed 10 men moving around on four bikes. The police kept a lookout for the cellphone numbers, which they identified as belonging to known gangsters from Washermanpet and Tondiapet. They located the phones to be in use at Mathur and Minjur. The clincher was the fact that the two cellphones stolen from the house were found to be active in a cluster with the five numbers the police were tracking.

A police team from Red Hills headed by Madhavaram deputy commissioner Balakrishnan and inspector Vasanthan nabbed the accused from their hideouts. Police sources said the main accused were Raghu who hatched the plan and Sathish who organised the men.

The other accused were identified as Akash, Yuvaraj, Sakthikumar, Karthik, Kuppusamy, Johnson, Vinoth and Mani.

Police said Venkatesan’s house was located very close to a lake where the gangsters used to drink. “The big house was a tempting target and the gangsters had expected more loot,” said an investigating officer. They used the money for ganja and liquor, the officer said. All10 were remanded in judicial custody.

Venkatesan, his wife, their daughter and son and another woman relative were at home when the 10 mention barged in after ringing the doorbell.