Tirupati: The Chittoor police cracked the sensational dacoity case and recovered 3.5 kg gold worth Rs 3.2 crore within two days.

On the night of April 2, a four-member gang of dacoits followed a gold merchant Deepak Kumar who was travelling in a car from V Kota in Chittoor district to Pernambattu in Tamil Nadu carrying 3.5 kg gold, intercepted the trader at Nayakaneri Ghats, a forest area, and took away the gold biscuits, threatening him to kill.

Deepak Kumar complained to V Kota police on April 3 and inspector Somasekhar Reddy registered a case under Cr No 49/2025, U/Sec 309(4) BNS.

Under the supervision of Chittoor district SP V S Manikanta Chandolu, four teams led by Palamaner DSP Degala Prabhakar formed to nab the culprits.

The four teams include Somasekhar Reddy, Gangavaram rural CI Murali Mohan, Byreddypalli SI Parasuram team, SB CI Bhaskar team, and Crime CI Uma Maheswar team which took up the investigation launched searches in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu states.

The intense searches coupled with latest technology and credible information and clues helped the teams to nab the four accused near Raghavapalli village on Saturday. The accused were caught when they were in a car by the police who took up searching of vehicles on V Kota-Palamaner national highway.

The four in the car including the prime accused A1 Jayapal (67) who is a municipal councillor in KGF town Karnataka, A2 Mukram(42), A3 S K Babu (61), and A4 Shanmugam(59), were detained. Five gold biscuits weighing 3.5kg were also recovered from the car.

In the interrogation that followed, Jayapal admitted that he along with three others involved in the dacoity.

He said Mukram who was working as a driver to the gold merchant Deepak Kumar passed on the information that Deepak Kumar was carrying the gold biscuits to Jameel.

Jameel who is a friend of Jayapal informed him about Deepak Kumar. In a pre-planned move they attacked Deepak Kumar in Nayakaneri Ghat and took away the gold biscuits he was carrying, the SP said. Nine more accused involved in the dacoity are still at large and police are making renewed efforts to catch them.

SP announced rewards to all those in the investigation teams which cracked the case in two days.

The arrested were sent to remand.