A special team from Central Crime Station (CCS) arrested a serial chain snatcher, who was involved in nine cases during the last 18 months in the city, here on Monday.

The accused, M. Maheshwara Rao (45), a resident of Kailasapuram, committed the offences in the limits of MVP, Dwaraka and Fourth Town police stations. Jewellery weighing 356 gm was snatched away from the victims.

Police team, led by ACP (CCS) V. Ramesh Kumar and Inspector (CCS) Raghu Srinivas, recovered 235 gm of gold ornaments from the accused.

According to DCP (crime) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy, the accused followed a unique pattern of modus operandi. “He moved on a motorbike targeting lonely or elderly women in isolated areas. He committed all the offences between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.,” the police official said.

Inspector Raghu Srinivas said the accused would approach a lonely woman and focus the headlight in high beam at the woman’s face. Later, he would snatch the chain and speed past the victim. After committing the crime, he would give a gap of about two to three months to commit the second offence.

According to the police, Maheshwara Rao is son of a former employee of VPT. After passing out from government ITI, he had worked for about 18 years as contract worker in VPT and for the last three years, he had been working as contract supervisor in a private shipping company. He has a son who is studying engineering and a daughter who is in second-year intermediate. “He was addicted to vices and took to crime to fund his vices,” said the police.

Second major case

This was the second major chain-snatching case that the crime branch cracked in this month. Earlier, the police nabbed the four-member inter-State gang from Bhopal that was involved in nine offences on a single day during the ‘Varalakshmi puja’ season.

The chain-snatching cases have dropped when compared to the last two years. In 2013 till November, the number of offences recorded was 183 and in 2014 it was 158. This year the figure stands at 126.

Gold ornaments weighting 235 gm have been recovered from the accused