Chain-snatchers strike at 2 places in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Chain-snatching incidents continued in the city without any let-up Wednesday. A woman was targeted by criminals in the morning at Mansoorabad in Vanasthalipuram even as  special police teams have been deployed to hunt down the gang. Cops suspect that the gang, active here in the last two days, is from Maharashtra.

The city police said they are in touch with the Mumbai police to have an idea about the modus operandi of the gang. Special teams of the police are being sent to Maharashtra and Karnataka as part of the investigations.

At Vanasthalipuram, victim C. Varalakshmi, 36, was walking back home after buying groceries from a shop. Two men came on a bike from the opposite side and snatched her chain. Some eye-witnesses told the police that the bike did not have number plate.

While a police team from Cyberabad has left for Maharashtra to identify the base of the gang, another team would leave for Bidar to check whether gangs from Karnataka are behind the series of chain-snatching incidents.

“All the snatchings took place in Hyderabad in the last two days, and it appeared this was the handiwork of a professionally trained gang. The maximum number of snatchings is reported in Mumbai. So we suspect that a gang active in Mumbai must have come here,” said Kukatpally ACP N. Sanjeev Rao.