Highlights
- Around 200 students of five reputed schools formed three gangs
- Eleven of these students, including 10 minors, were caught by police on Tuesday
- Police have recovered several motorcycles, a dozen cellphones and some crude bombs
Uttar Pradesh: Around 200 students of five reputed schools formed three gangs that were involved in a turf war in the city. The police held the gangs responsible for six crude bomb blasts during the past few months. The WhatsApp groups and gangs of these students have names like Tandav, Jaguar, Tiger, Immortal and Rangbaz.
The students learnt bomb-making from online videos and social media platforms. They not only hurled crude bombs outside three prominent convent schools' gates to prove their group's supremacy, but also uploaded videos of the act on social media.
Eleven of these students, including 10 minors, were caught by police on Tuesday, the officials said, adding that they were involved in incidents of hurling crude bombs and physical assaults. Police have recovered several motorcycles, a dozen cellphones and some crude bombs from the arrested students. The accused used to travel on two wheelers and ensure to cover their faces at all times," Prayagraj Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sailesh Pandey said. Pandey said that the students were involved in incidents of crude bomb blast on July 15, 16 and 22 in different parts of the city.
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Mobile surveillance helped nail culprits
Police initially suspected the involvement of criminal gangs in the crude bomb blasts but was able to zero in on the school students after a month-long investigation assisted by mobile phone surveillance and technical units.
Police reach out to parents
"We have also decided to reach out to parents via the school administration urging them to keep a watch on the activities of their children so that they could be saved from entering a world of crime," said the SSP.
Baba Abhay Awasthi, a Prayagraj-based social worker, said that prevalence of crude bombs in the city began way back in 1971 after an absconding Naxalite taught locals how to make a crude bomb. The use of crude bombs specially by youngsters remained prevalent in the city for almost three decades, Awasthi said, adding the trend propagated because of the easy availability of materials used for making a crude bomb.
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