This well-organised criminal outfit has a history of sweeping clean stocks of expensive electronic gadgets from shops in many states and selling them off across the border in Nepal.
Bettiah: A well-organised outfit of thieves from the Ghorasahan block of Bihar's East Champaran district, popular as the Shutter Katwa ('shutter cutter') gang, has become a terror for traders dealing in high-value electronic goods in several states. Investigations into hundreds of cases registered in police stations across the country, such as Delhi's Roop Nagar, Uttarakhand's Haldwani, Rajasthan's Kotwali Dausa, Karnataka's Khade Bazaar and many others, have led to this gang.
On
September 17 this year, Rajasthan’s Hanumangarh Junction police registered a
case of theft after 86 smartphones and several internet routers
worth more than Rs 11 lakh were stolen from a shop. "The thieves’ modus operandi, revealed
by the CCTV footage, pointed at the Shutter
Katwa gang," investigating officer of the case, Assistant Sub Inspector
Shiv Narayan, told 101Reporters. A team headed by him went to Ghorasahan in October
but could not arrest any of the culprits.
On January
14 this year, Rajasthan police in coordination with East Champaran police
arrested three members of the Shutter
Katwa gang – identified as Deepak Kumar, Mustafa Diwan and Maqbul – from
Birata Chowk area in Ghorasahan in connection with the burgling of a showroom at
Bhiwadi on December 3, 2020. They recovered 52 iPhones worth around Rs 50 lakh
from the accused.
Sub
Inspector VV Bhola of the Anti-Terrorist Squad in Ahmedabad said that 98 mobile
phones were stolen from a shop in Rander near Surat in October 2018. "Judging from the methods used by the thieves, police suspected the role of the Shutter Katwa gang. A five-member team headed
by a sub-inspector from the crime branch went to Bihar and arrested two of the
suspects," said Bhola, who was then attached to Rander police station.
On February 22, 2018, a joint team of Haridwar and Raxaul police arrested two persons — identified as Bipatdas and Prabhunath Pandey, both residents of Ghorasahan — for allegedly stealing 27 iPhones and 13 tablets from a showroom in Haridwar a month ago. Police recovered six iPhones and many tablets from their possession.
Akhilesh
Kumar Mishra, the station house officer (SHO) of Ghorasahan police station, confirmed
that police from many parts of the country had visited the block in search of the
members of the Shutter Katwa gang.
"Police from Uttarakhand, Telangana and Maharashtra alone have arrested at
least 15 persons from this region in connection with thefts committed in their
respective states," he said.
A safe haven in Nepal
A former
SHO at Ghorasahan police station, who wished to remain anonymous, cited the area’s proximity to the Nepal border
as the main difficulty in busting the gang. "Many of these thieves have
relatives in Nepal. After committing thefts, they sneak across the border with
the booty, making it difficult for Indian forces to track them. The gang also finds selling the stolen
goods easier in Nepal. Nonetheless, at least 25 thieves were arrested
during my tenure at Ghorasahan police station," the officer told 101Reporters.
Sources in
the local police said that the Shutter
Katwa gang, comprising more than 250 members from Ghorasahan block and its
neighbouring villages, had around 15 groups operating in different states. Over
the years, more than 100 members of the gang were arrested in Jharkhand, Rajasthan,
Punjab, Haryana, Orissa and Maharashtra. Some of these arrests were made in
cities such as Dehradun, Haldwani, Surat, Siliguri, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bhopal and
Gurgaon, they said.
Sub Inspector Bhola said, "They visit shops posing as customers during the day to assess the stock of electronic gadgets. If satisfied, they return at night and pry open the shutters using jacks. While some of them enter the shops and steal the goods, others cover the shutter gap by pretending to be folding bed sheets,” Bhola said.
"If the gang members find CCTV cameras installed in the shop during a theft, they switch groups for their next strike. They flee the state by train immediately after committing a theft," a police officer at Hanumangarh Junction police station told 101Reporters.
The gang swells, lured by money and prestige
Police said
the Shutter Katwa gang was formed by a
small group of thieves in the mid-1980s, but it grew with time as the lure of money
attracted many criminals to it. The gang, also known locally as Archa Company and Chaddar Gang, has members ranging from teenagers to 50-year-olds, they
said.
"Local
criminals consider a membership to the gang as a matter of pride and will go to
any extent to please the families of its members to gain a place in the gang,"
said a villager who did not wish to be named.
Many members of the gang, including the notorious Belwa and his brother Chelwa who were arrested recently by Motihari police in East Champaran, have reportedly constructed huge residential and commercial buildings in Ghorasahan block. "Chelwa is wanted in 25 cases of theft registered in 10 states, even as Belwa is facing charges in 12 cases of theft," said Naveen Chandra Jha, Superintendent of Police (SP), East Champaran, adding that recovery of three kilograms of narcotic substances from their possession had added a new twist to the investigations into the gang’s operations.
Villagers told 101Reporters that the outfit has its own jargon. They use the term haldi (turmeric) for gold, chuna (lime) for silver, petti (box) for money, pen for screwdriver and master for police. They train new members by deploying them for thefts in nearby towns such as Raxaul, Motihari and Narkatiaganj. They also maintain close links with other criminal gangs in the region and extend support to each other in many ways, including securing bail when a member is arrested, the villagers said.
The
families of Shutter Katwa gang members
do not consider theft as a crime. "They consider the ‘work’ as a matter of high
esteem as it fetches enough money to change their fortunes. The gang members also
borrow money from fellow villagers as a good luck charm before setting out for an
operation," said another villager.
"Local
villagers are aware of the identities of the gang members and their activities
but stay silent fearing a backlash,” said a local journalist, adding that some of
the members who had retired from the gang were running their own businesses in
the region.
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