Interstate gang of con men busted, six held

LUCKNOW: With the arrest of six men in Krishnanagar on Saturday, the Lucknow police claimed to have busted an interstate gang of con men .

A countrymade gun, two live cartridges, a gold biscuit, three two-wheelers, a car and Rs 1840 cash were recovered from them.

Those arrested have been identified as Mohammad Afsar, Mohammad Abdul Wahab, (both residents of Sant Kabir Nagar), Harikeshwar Singh, Sriniwas Yadav and Ram Prasad of Maharajganj and Pankaj Singh of Basti. Several cases are lodged against all six at Krishna Nagar police station. According to cops, the gang was active in Lucknow, Maharajganj, Sant Kabir Nagar and Bihar.

“The gang members disguised themselves as cops and spotted old men and women in residential colonies wearing gold jewellery. After that, they intercepted their quarry posing as cops,” said Anjani Kumar Pandey, station officer, Krishna Nagar police station.

“Thereafter, they pretended they were on a checking drive and persuaded the target to hand over the jewellery. Once they got it, they fled from the spot,” Pandey added. With the ill-gotten money, the gang purchased gold biscuits. The gang members also targeted jewellers by offering them gold biscuits at subsidised rates. They used to fix a meeting with a jeweller at secluded places to sell a gold biscuit. When the deal was being struck, some members of the gang used to reach the spot, posing as sleuths of the crime branch and seize the cash brought by the jeweller as well as the gold biscuits.

MINOR SERVANTS DRUG OLD COUPLE, DETAINED

Two minor servants drugged their employer Jagdish Agarwal, 82, and his wife Sheela, 75, residents of Mahanagar on Friday night. When family members came to know about it on Saturday morning, they rushed the couple to a private hospital where their condition is stated to be out of danger.

The Mahanagar police have detained the minor servants at the police station. Cops suspect the servants drugged the couple with the intention of loot but could not succeed.

According to cops, the Agarwal family hired two minor servants, one a native of Firozabad and other of Sitapur, two months ago. On Friday night, the servants laced the couple’s food with drugs when the rest of the family members went to sleep.