Nine youths involved in robberies in Lko arrested

The Lucknow police on Tuesday arrested nine youths, between 18 years to 26 years of age, and claimed to have busted the gang behind two sensational robberies in city in the past three months.

The arrests were made after an encounter near Polytechnic crossing under Ghazipur police station limits during wee hours, police officials said.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP, north), Prachi Singh said those arrested were identified as Mohd Kashif Ansari, Ashish Tewari, Nizam, Sonu Rawat, Jai Surya, Shubham Bajpai, Vivek Prajapati, Prem Yadav and Harsh Vardhan Singh.

Singh claimed Ansari, 23, was the gang leader and carried a reward of ₹10,000 for his arrest announced by DCP (west), in connection with a robbery in Chowk area.

The police official claimed the same gang was involved in ₹3 lakh loot that was carried out by holding the staff of a courier company hostage at their office in Ravindrapalli locality under Ghazipur police station on

March 1. She said the gang is suspected to have carried out many more loots and robberies and said the accused were being interrogated.

She said the police have recovered around ₹ 97,500, four country made firearms, factory made pistol and 10 mobile phones. Giving details of the encounter, she said the nine accused riding on three motorcycles were moving from Munshipulia to Polytechnic crossing when they were intercepted at around 2am. She claimed the accused opened fire at the police party after which police team retaliated.