'Chain' Reaction: Bengaluru Cops In Quandary As Repeated Arrests Fail To Deter Notorious Snatcher
Gani Bhai in the Salman Khan-starrer film Wanted gave sleepless nights to the police. Now, in real life, chain snatcher Gani, alias Achyut Kumar, has left Bengaluru cops scratching their heads. He has been arrested multiple times and was shot in the leg once by the police in 2018. But none of this has stopped Gani from snatching gold chains. He has committed more than 160 chain-snatching crimes over the last decade.
Girinagar police on June 23 apprehended the chain snatcher and seized 541 grams of gold chains related to 11 different cases. He had sold or pledged these gold ornaments in far-off Hyderabad and Palakkad. He had been targeting areas under ten different police station limits, including Yelahanka, Girinagar, Kodigehalli, Sanjaynagar, and Kengeri.
'Gani' in 60 seconds!
Gani is known for committing multiple snatchings within a short span, once striking three times in just three hours, even in broad daylight in the Sanjaynagar and Kodigehalli areas. The accused has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
Hailing from Koliwad near Hubballi, Gani is exceptionally adept at robbing women wearing gold jewellery. He often wears a full-face helmet and rides stolen motorcycles. He snatches the gold chains in a flash and escapes. To evade the cops, he often changes houses.
pic.twitter.com/fbgL9h8TGH — Harish Upadhya (@harishupadhya) July 8, 2025
On June 17, 2018, police in Jnanabharathi caught him after shooting him in the leg. The arrest helped the police recover Rs 1 crore worth of stolen gold chains. Gani spent the next four years in the Central Prison at Parappana Agrahara as an undertrial before being released on bail. He was again arrested in October 2022. The police are now considering slapping harsher charges against him, possibly even the Goonda Act.
'This particular accused is involved in more than 160 odd cases of chain snatching in the previous years and other cases also. So it's a serious issue why he's committing crimes like this, and we've discussed this with our crime team also, and our senior officers have been told that he should not repeat this offence. Taking into consideration all these things, we have stricter sections we can book against him," said Seemanth Kumar Singh, Bengaluru city police commissioner.
First Published:
July 08, 2025, 22:16 IST
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