Nellore: The team investigating the robbery on the Navjeevan Express bound for Chennai last month has arrested C. Samay John Rao, an officer of the rank of additional SP, on Monday. John Rao is working as Officer on Special Duty in Prakasam district.

The team summoned the OSD and some DSPs to Nellore and detained the officer who was in uniform. He was immediately taken to Kavali and produced before court. The police had taken into custody three AR constables, Gudd-anti Kiran Babu, 26, Chirigiri Ravi, 29, and Tupili Siva Krishna, 27, for involvement in the robbery of Rs 86.55 lakh from passengers travelling in the Navjeevan Express on May 14.

The arrested men had threatened Vemuri Ramaiah and Biyyapu Suneel of Kavali, at gunpoint and forced them to alight when the train was going slow at Padugupadu in Nellore. The trio had, under the pretext of taking them to the DSP of Kavali, grabbed the money and pushed them out of the train. The police recovered the booty from the arrested men. The main accused, Devara Nagaraju surrendered before court at Kavali last week. He spilled the beans about John Rao. Police also came to know that John Rao had given a weapon to the AR constables to carry out the offence.

John Rao had called some senior police officers and urged them to go soft on the constables involved in the offence after their arrest. Nellore SP Gajarao Bhupal said that cases have been filed against the OSD under IPC for conspiracy, dacoity and under the Arms Act.

Seven held for crimes on trains:

A gang of seven from UP, allegedly involved in train robberies in Tamil Nadu and AP, has been nabbed by the Government Railway Police, Chennai. The police has also spread a net to nab absconding members of the gang.

All the seven arrested men hailed from Uttar Pradesh and are involved in offenses in TN and Andhra Pradesh. “The men admitted that they are a part of a gang involved in train robberies. The gang moves in numbers of four to eight. One man would stop the train by pulling the emergency chain and others would snatch the gold chains of passengers sleeping near windows,” said GRP deputy superintendent V. Ponram.

The men are wanted in robbery cases at Chennai, Jolarpet, Erode and Salem in TN and Ongole, Yerraguntla, Kadapa and Renigunta in AP. Special teams have been formed to nab the absconding men and recover property," added Ponram.