Tirupati: Rs 8.6 lakh jewellery seized from couple

Tirupati: Tiruchanur police have arrested a couple involved in various thefts from devotees at Padmavathi Ammavari temple and at its surroundings on Wednesday. They also recovered 345 grams gold ornaments worth Rs 8,62,500 from them. Addressing a media conference at Tiruchanur police station, East DSP Ravisankar Reddy said the couple Sambasivarao and Venkatalakshmi belong to Bapatla of Guntur district and they opted to steal valuables from pilgrims from 2013 to come out from debt trap they incurred due to heavy loss in business.  

Interestingly Sambasi-varao was elected ward member of  Bapatla mu-nicipality before 2013. They choose Tirucha-nur to relieve valuables from the devotees thr-onging for Goddess darshan. They used to operate at Pushkarini, Ann-adanam complex and queue lines etc under the guise of pilgrims and steal gold ornaments from the gullible.

'The Tiruchanur police have arrested these two while they were on regular rounds of policing near Pudi railway station on Wednesday. There are five cases pending in Tiruchanur police station against Venkatalakshmi.

Mr Ravisankar said the Tirupati crime police had arrested the duo in connection with theft in Tirumala in 2013 and they were remanded then. However, this did not deter them from committing thefts. Tiruchanur CI Surendrakumar, SIs Mallesh Yadav, Chandrasekhar and ID personnel were present with the DSP.