Hyderabad: The Chikkadpally police and the central zone task force have solved a major robbery by arresting an interstate gang of six. The police also seized 416 Gold Flake cigarette cartons worth Rs 3.28 crore from the gang. The gang which stole a container carrying the cigarettes from Pune unloaded it into a van. They were caught as they were trying to dispose the stolen material in the Patancheru and VST area.

Gang leader Dastagiri Shah, 32, belonging to Karnataka was a lorry driver and decided to rob container trucks on NHs. Dastagiri and his brother Allah Shah arranged a team of six, Rs 2 lakh cash and a bike to do the recce. Dastagiri, Satish, Radhakrishna and Mohammed Arshad conducted a recce for 15 days and zeroed in on the ITC cigarette unit at Ranjangaon in the Sholapur district of Maharashtra. The gang observed the movement of containers from the unit and decided to intercept a truck driven by a lone driver.

“On June 10 the gang saw a container with a single driver coming out of the ITC unit. They followed the vehicle on a bike and intercepted it on Indapur bypass road. They threatened the driver with daggers,” said DCP V.B. Kamalasan Reddy. “The gang tied up driver Maruti and blindfolded and plastered his mouth with a tape. They hijacked the vehicle and moved towards Bidar. After sometime they saw the GPS in the vehicle. Fearing that they would be tracked they switched it off,” the DCP added.

Later, they took the truck to Sunil’s house in a remote village in Bidar district for unloading. After that they abandoned the truck near Tuljapur and fled. “They left the driver blindfolded in the vehicle with his hands and legs tied. He was rescued by passersby and he lodged a complaint at the Tembur police station in Pune,” added the official.