Gram Panchayat member turned thief arrested

A people’s representative from Alangur in Karnataka’s Kolar district has been arrested on charges of theft.

35-year-old Srirama is a gram panchayat member by day and thief by night, said the police.

Srirama, who claims to come from a family of thieves, had burgled six houses and stolen two motorcycles in Bangalore. Police inspector Guruswamy, who arrested Srirama and brought him to the Bangalore City Police Commissioner’s office, said the gram panchayat-member-turned thief’s father and brother are also thieves.

A native of Alangur in Kolar, Srirama was not only elected gram panchayat member a few years ago, but had also served as a President of the gram panchayat for three months. But, that did not deter him from going on a burgling spree.

Along with his accomplice Srinivasa, Srirama went about breaking homes and carrying away valuables after nightfall even as he would solemnly go about his tasks as a gram panchayat member.

According to the police, Srirama’s modus operandi was to hop onto a train or a bus along with his accomplice and carry out a recce of residential areas in and around Bangalore and fix the target. But, the police stopped him in his tracks on Sunday and recovered from him gold, silver and motorcycles valued around Rs 450,000.

With at least eight cases of theft against him, Srirama had a criminal past even before he was elected as a gram panchayat member. With his ill-gotten wealth as a petty thief he went on to become a minor politician. “He had dreams of becoming an MLA”, a police official said.

Police inspector Guruswamy said a letter will be written to the authorities concerned to find out whether Srirama had misused the funds allotted for the development of the village.

Srirama confessed to have taken to crime to fund his drinking and gambling habit, police said.