Students by day & robbers by night: Four Bengaluru minors snatch woman’s bag, bury gold in cemetery | Bengaluru News

Bengaluru: They were all minors but wanted to make quick bucks to splurge on drugs, cigarettes and snacks. Setting eyes on lone victims, mainly pedestrians near bus stands or isolated streets, three Class IX students and one first-year PU student ganged up for pre-dawn robberies across East Bengaluru for over a year. However their luck ran out when they snatched the valuables of a woman on July 3. Caught by KR Puram police, they are now cooling their heels in jail.On the morning of July 3, a woman in her 50s was walking past Garden City College when two of the juveniles, riding a stolen gearless scooter, snatched her handbag and mobile phone. The woman had travelled from Andhra Pradesh and was carrying around 470 grams of gold ornaments meant to be pledged for a loan by her daughter.After the robbery, the four regrouped at a cemetery — a spot they regularly used to divide stolen goods. On discovering gold ornaments in the stolen bag, the juveniles panicked and buried them in the cemetery. They kept the mobile phone and tried to access the woman’s UPI payment app. One of them entered the digits 1-2-3-4-5-6 — and it worked.Digital trailUsing the unlocked app, the boys bought tea, snacks, and cigarettes at a nearby hotel, paying entirely through online transactions. The woman approached KR Puram police station around 8am and lodged a complaint. Acting swiftly, a team led by inspector Ramamurthy B scanned feeds from over 30 CCTV cameras spanning the college area to the cemetery.While the footage captured the boys on the scooter, they could not be identified until police accessed the clips from the hotel. Staff recognised the first PU student as a regular customer. Police picked him up from his house by evening, and based on his statement, detained the other three juveniles.Gold dug out from cemeteryThe stolen mobile phone was recovered from the PU student. The group then led police to the cemetery, where officers recovered the buried gold ornaments. Investigators said the woman was carrying them to help her daughter secure a loan.Police also confirmed that the juveniles had been involved in similar offences for at least a year, though no previous complaints were on record. “They operated mostly once a week or fortnight, always between 2am and 4 am. They’d first smoke ganja and then prowl for victims,” an officer said.Low-income family backgroundsAll four juveniles came from low-income families; parents were daily wage workers and often absent from home. Despite financial struggles, the parents had enrolled the boys in school and college. However, without supervision, they had formed a routine that included substance use, petty crime, and early-morning robberies.The boys have been produced before the Juvenile Justice Board. KR Puram police are also investigating other possible offences involving the group and are trying to trace the original owner of the stolen scooter. Police say the case highlights not just a serious lapse in law and order, but also the consequences of unsupervised children drifting into the criminal world.