Arunachal Pradesh police has arrested four Army jawans, who teamed up with civilians and committed burglary at a house on the outskirts of State capital Itanagar.
Armed with assault rifles, the jawans ganged up with five civilians to carry out the burglary. The personnel belonged to 138 Medium Regiment based at likabali near Itanagar but were deployed in adjoining areas of Assam’s North lakhimpur district.
A colonel later identified the arrested as naik subedar RK Yadav and riflemen Pradeep Kumar, Arun Sarkar and P Chandu.
“They were intercepted at the Banderdewa check gate following the information that they were fleeing in an off-roader after looting `6.89 lakh from a local,” Itanagar Superintendent of Police Nabam Gungte said.
The police seized three AK-47 rifles, six magazines, 180 live cartridges, two bottles of unidentified chemicals and 718 pieces of paper for making currency notes.
“Those arrested said they were also involved in an illegal money multiplying scheme,” Gungte said. The accused were produced before a Chief Judicial Magistrate on Friday. The police sought 14 days’ custody.
Meanwhile, in another incident 18 convicts, including 13 who were allegedly involved in the gang-rape of a girl, escaped by breaking a cell for the undertrial prisoners (UTP) at Chowkam in the State’s lohit district.
Police said that the incident of the escape of convicts took place at a police outpost in the wee hours of Friday. “They were lodged at an UTP cell. The convicts dug a hole and escaped,” Inspector K Deori of the outpost said.
It was learnt that the building was old and on the verge of collapse. “Several teams of the police are scouting the nearby jungles. But so far, they haven’t been able to nab any,” he said.
Thirteen of those who fled were gang-rape accused while two were members of a militant organisation.