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Journalism of Courage
Ten people were arrested in Pune in the last two days in connection with two separate incidents in which armed robbers seized vehicles carrying chickens from Kamshet and Shirur areas last month in the wake of soaring prices of chicken, the Pune rural police said.
Rising rates of poultry feed, such as soybean and corn, and surging transportation costs have steeply pushed up poultry prices in the market from Rs 140 per kg to Rs 240 per kg in just over a month.
On March 30, the Pune rural police reported a case in which a tempo truck carrying 1,442 chickens was seized at knifepoint by men who intercepted the vehicle in Kamshet area in Pune’s Maval taluka, officers said. The suspects also took the mobile phones of the driver and his assistant before fleeing with the vehicle, they added.
In another case registered on March 16, suspects seized a truck carrying 13,060 chickens from Nhavare village in Shirur taluka of Pune, the police said. In both cases, officers pointed out, the local crime branch (LCB) of the Pune rural police had launched a parallel probe along with the local police stations.
Inspector Ashok Shelke, in-charge of the LCB said, “In both the cases, we initially probed the role of the drivers in the crime; but further probe led us to rule out that possibility. In the case registered at Kamshet police station, two of the arrested suspects ran chicken shops prior to the pandemic, but had run into losses.”
“In the case registered at Shirur police station, the suspects primarily committed the crime to earn easy money. Five persons each have been arrested by us in each of the cases and the probes have now been handed over to the respective police stations,” the inspector added.
