Two women among four held for stealing gold chains at temple fest

TRICHY: Four people, including two women from Salem were arrested by the police for indulging in chain snatching incidents during the car festival that took place at Thiruvanaikaval last week. Police also recovered gold ornaments worth Rs 10 lakh from the offenders.
The accused, who were arrested on Wednesday were identified as S Arul Mary, 42, D Padma alias Vasanthi, 40, both hailing from Kakkapalayam in Salem, D Selvamani, 42 and C Subramanian alias Suresh, 33 residents of Thiruverumbur in Trichy.The city police formed a special team after six cases of chain-snatching were reported at the famous Thiruvanaikaval temple car festival last week.
The Srirangam police, who had registered a case last week, said that unidentified men relieved gold chains weighing around 25 sovereigns from six women in the age group of 50 to 60.
Police managed to capture the identity of the accused through the video footage recorded in surveillance cameras in Thiruvanaikaval. They gathered the history of the accused and traced the mobile numbers of the accused. Finally, they zeroed in on their location and caught them. During investigation, police found that the accused had sold some of the stolen chains in Madurai. Following this, they recovered a total of 40 sovereigns gold chains worth Rs 10 lakh from the arrested people as well as from Madurai.
Police said that the accused were involved in a number of chain-snatching incidents in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and operated from Chittoor district. Police have registered cases against the four accused and produced them in court, which remanded them in custody.
Meanwhile, two more chain-snatching incidents have been reported during a procession at Srirangam temple festival on Tuesday evening. Police said that unidentified men snatched the gold chains of Chandra, 36 and Sundaravalli, 74 of Srirangam area when the participated in the procession. Around seven sovereigns of gold ornaments were snatched from them. The festival was attended by thousands of people.
Police said that people fail to follow the advice to keep vigil on their valuables in such crowded places. The cases were reported in Srirangam police station and an investigation was on.