Police hunt down deadly phone snatching gang

Coimbatore: Six days after a gang stabbed an engineering student, who had refused to hand over his mobile phone, to death at Sulur here, the rural police on Friday arrested six youths in connection with the case.
Police identified them as R Mohan, 21, of Periyar Nagar at Masakalipalayam, S Sathish Kumar, 20, of Patel Street at Vellalore, R Vijay, 21, of Veeramathi Amman Kovil at Vellalore, S Surya, 19, of Periyar Nagar at Masakalipalayam, S Ganesh Vetrivel, 20, of Ondipudur and V Mohanraj, 18, of Vellalore.
Preliminary inquiry revealed that Sathish Kumar, Surya, Ganesh Vetrivel and Mohanraj had become friends while they were students of a corporation school. “They had dropped out from Class X and were doing odd jobs for some time. They later befriended Mohan and Vijay. Surya was facing two cases for causing public nuisance and Mohan, three cases for selling ganja and one for theft. Mohan used to supply ganja to his friends,” a police officer said.
The six-member gang decided to snatch mobile phones from people to make some quick cash. “They used to roam the streets at night to snatch phones. They would sell the phones and buy liquor,” he told TOI.
Last Saturday, around 11.30pm, they targeted D Tamilselvan, 20, of Sadayan Thottam in Nadu Arasur, a third year Mechanical Engineering student in a private college. “He was on the way to his home from a bus stand. The gang waylaid him and attempted to snatch his phone. When he resisted, Ganesh Vetrivel stabbed Tamilselvan in his right chest. When the student cried for help, the gang escaped from the spot on two motorcycles,” the officer said.
Ten minutes later, the gang snatched a phone from K Mahalingam, 25, of Vasantha Nagar at Arasur, who was on his moped. They also stabbed him before taking his moped. They abandoned the vehicle a kilometre away from the crime scene.
Police superintendent Sujit Kumar had formed six special teams to nab the gang. Though the gang members had removed the SIM card from the stolen mobile phone and had inserted a new one, police tracked the IMEI number of the device and arrested them.
Police also seized two motorcycles, a knife and a mobile phone from them. They will be produced before the Sulur judicial magistrate on Saturday.