Kochi: A group of young nomadic women, who used to roam around the city posing as ragpickers during the day and allegedly committed burglaries at night in houses here, have been arrested, police said. The four women, all in their early 20s and hailing from the northern districts of Kozhikode and Wayanad, were held in connection with a recent theft of cash and valuable items worth nearly Rs 25 lakh from a house in the heart of the city.
Though the house was located in a busy area, the absence of CCTV cameras apparently prompted the thieves to target the building and burgled gold worth 20 sovereigns, Rs 3.25 lakh in cash, a luxury watch and some foreign currency recently, police said in a statement here on Monday.
A massive search, conducted by a special team led by Ernakulam Central Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Jayakumar Chandramohan, helped the investigators to catch hold of the culprits from their home districts, it said. A tip-off regarding the presence of the nomadic women, gathered from the CCTV footage of a neighboring building, came as a breakthrough helping the police to extend their probe into other parts of the state and arrest the accused, it added.
According to police, the women used to visit the houses in select areas of Kochi city posing as scrap collectors during the day and find out the unoccupied buildings and the ones having no CCTV cameras.
Some houses were also burgled by men who accompanied them, they said. Certain valuables, stolen from the house recently, were recovered from the accused and more were expected to be found during detailed interrogation, police added.
PTI
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