Ghorasahan in Bihar on national crime map
Tucked in a remote corner of Bihar’s East Champaran district, Ghorasahan village has found a place on the national crime map of India.
The village, inhabited by 400500 people, has earned notoriety in breaking open shutters of commercial establishments, stealing valuables and selling them at throwaway price in Nepal.
Famous locally as the ‘shutterkatwa’ (shutter cutter) gang, at least 100 youngsters of this village have been arrested in the last few years by cops from Dehradun, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Lucknow, Surat, Gurgaon, Odisha, Punjab, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh and Karnataka.
Recently, a joint police team from Haridwar (Uttarakhand) and Raxaul (Bihar) busted one such gang by arresting three men who had stolen iPhones and tablets from Haridwar.
“Three youths — Bipat Das, Prabhunath Pandey and Mohammad Sahabaz — had burgled electronic gizmos from a showroom in Haridwar on January 28. We laid a trap and apprehended them in separate raids. We recovered six iPhones and as many tablets from their possession,” said Raxaul deputy superintendent of police Rakesh Kumar.
The thieves had confessed to their crime. They even admitted to having disposed many stolen goods in Nepal, which is just 2 km from Ghorasahan, the cop said.
“Due to proximity of the village with Nepal, thieves find an easy market to sell their stolen goods across the international border,” said a police officer on condition of anonymity.
Detailing the modus operandi of the gang, the cop said, “The thieves lure youths of Ghorasahan to Delhi and other cities by promising them rewarding jobs. They then hire cheap rented accommodations near the target area. They split in 3-4 small groups, conduct a recce of the area and also note the timing of police patrolling.”
The gang uses iron rods and car jacks to lift the shutter of the shop they target the cop added.
Why are youngsters lured into theft? Police attribute it to missing jobs and under development. Elders in Motihari said that the villages bordering Nepal haven’t seen any development since independence. Literacy is abysmally low, lesser than 40 % and even the basic amenities are missing.
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