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The north-south link
 A
few days ago, at Vellappan Chavadi, Tiruverkadu, on the outskirts of Chennai, a
group forcibly entered the house of the local DMK secretary, attacked the
watchman with iron rods and broke open the doors with crowbars. The time was
2.30 a.m.
The group, numbering five to
seven, mercilessly attacked the wife and daughter of Gajendran, the DMK leader,
with iron rods when they woke up on hearing the noise. They swooned
in a pool of blood. They then broke open the bedroom where Gajendran was
sleeping. After attacking him, they looted several hundred sovereigns of jewels
and several lakhs of rupees and disappeared.
The watchman and Gajendran died
later.
A
leading English daily from Chennai said the attack and murder
were politically motivated and orchestrated by the political rivals of Gajendran.
But the modus operandi of the criminals and the way they handled the articles at
the scene of crime clearly indicate the involvement of some professional dacoits
in the crime.
In the past, there have been
several such dacoity in various parts of Tamil Nadu and
Andhra Pradesh. At Annadanapatti, near Salem, a local Congress leader was shot
dead and his properties worth several lakhs of rupees were looted. A doctor's
family at Sriperumbudur, in Kancheepuram police limits, were also ruthlessly
attacked by criminals and property looted.
Several such crimes with the
same modus operandi had also occurred at Walaja, Gumidipoondi, Kangeyam, near
Periyar district, and Coimbatore of Tamil Nadu, Chittoor and Prakasam district
of Andhra Pradesh.
 Normally,
the local gypsy criminals of Tamil Nadu used to involve in such crimes. But the
clues available from all these scenes of crimes indicate the involvement of some
north Indian criminals for two obvious reasons: when a woman at the Tiruverkadu
house screamed for help, the criminals used the world 'chup' which is the Hindi
word for "keep quiet".
At two crime spots, some of the
eye-witnesses noticed the criminals escaping in a 'Tata Sumo' vehicle which had
'MH' registration, indicating Maharashtra. The criminals were fair and had
carried country-made guns. This is entirely in contrast with the local gypsy
criminals who are dark complexioned and carry only wooden sticks and 'aruval'
but would never bring any guns.
Gypsies normally do not attack
anyone unless they refuse to cooperate. But in these cases, the criminals
mercilessly attacked everyone as soon as they entered the house, just to
terrorise them. All these point to the possibility of the involvement of
criminals from north India.
Another notable feature of
these crimes is that the criminals strike once in three months. The latest
attack was in March, near Chennai. Before that it was in September at
Sriperumbudur.
 Another
notable feature is that while making a trip to south India to commit these
crimes, the criminals are not content with a single crime. After committing the
crime and returning home, they commit crimes in a row en route. Last time, after
committing the crime at Sriperumbudur, they had committed more crimes at Salem
and Coimbatore. Two days before committing a crime at Tiruverkadu after an
interval of three months, they committed a crime at Tiruchur, Kerala.
This indicates that they had
gone back after their previous crime and retuned after three months.
An important point has to be
mentioned here about the failure of Chengai East police in arresting the
criminals. Information about the crime had been passed to the policemen within
an hour after the crime was committed. If the Chengai police had acted
immediately and sealed the check-posts of Chengai East, Kancheepuram and
Tiruvallur districts, the criminals could have been trapped.
The night patrol policemen of
these three districts and Chennai city should have been alerted through wireless
about the movement of the criminals. Last year, when a child was kidnapped by a
group of criminals, within a few hours, by sealing all the borders, the
criminals were nabbed by Chengai Police.
How to nab these criminals is a
big question. With the fingerprints available at the scene of crime, police are
on the look-out for the criminals in north India. But some months ago,, the
Andhra Police had got an important clue about the criminals and based on the
information, they had proceeded to Maharashtra.
The
local police did not cooperate with these policemen. When the Andhra police
surrounded the house of the criminals in Maharashtra to arrest them, they were
shocked to see that they they were being threatened with handguns. Subsequently,
on getting information, a Member of Parliament of the area came in several cars,
accompanied by several goondas. He forcibly freed the criminals from the
clutches of the Andhra police and took them away. The
helpless Andhra policemen returned empty-handed even after fixing the real
criminals.
An important feature of this
dastardly dacoities is that these occur
only on the outskirts where the houses are scattered and not in crowded towns
and cities. So, as a safety measure, rich people should always select their
residence in crowded cities, avoiding the outskirts as otherwise it is not only
their property but their very life would be at stake.
Harvey
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