Suspected Dhar gang members targeting houses on city outskirts

Suspected Dhar gang members targeting houses on city outskirts

A gang suspected to be from Dhar in Madhya Pradesh is prowling on city outskirts by targeting houses and apartments. The Rachakonda police have deployed three teams, including officials from the Central Crime Station (CCS) of LB Nagar, to trace and nab them. 

Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, Rachakonda police chief Tarun Joshi said the gang members travel to metro cities in a group and go on a house-breaking spree among a cluster of houses until a certain ‘quota’ is met, and travel back to Dhar.

“The gang is often armed and nests in nearby isolated areas on the outskirts before starting their spree of breaking and entering houses. Few of them stand guard around the house they break into and alert them if they are at risk of getting caught,” said the official. 

The gang targeted 4-5 houses in Kuntloor last week. Officials said that they were successful in decamping with some silver articles from only one of the houses. “We got information about similar offences in Maheshwaram area as well, which were reported around the same time. We are trying to ascertain if the same gang was involved in the two offences,” they said. 

Officials close to the investigation also said that once the gang leaves and heads back to Dhar, it gets difficult to nab and retrieve the loot from them.

“The local authorities are not so cooperative and only agree to partially return the stolen loot by not handing over the accused,” said an official, requesting anonymity. 

The gang was last heard in the city in 2022, following which a group of policemen from the Cyberabad Commissionerate headed to Dhar and worked as road construction labourers to blend in and flush them out. The decoy operation was to nab the main heads of the gang who were nabbed here for their involvement in 98 offences in Cyberabad and its neighbouring districts since 2018.