Social media reels brandishing dangerous weapons, status messages issuing threats to rivals and gangsters claiming dominance in an area through online posts are on the radar of the Pimpri Chinchwad police, with 39 people having been arrested in the past five months.
Social media statuses and reels from two rival gangsтАУknown as the Sarkar group and the Baba groupтАУin the Talegaon Dabhade town in Pune district recently led to the murder of a 19-year-old man and a murder attempt on a 15-year-old boy. The murder of Pranav Dnyaneshwar Mandekar alias Jai, a B Com student, and the attempt on the life of a Class 10 studentтАУboth known to be members of the Sarkar groupтАУwas the fallout of a тАЬreel rivalryтАЭ.
An investigation revealed that both groups had made social media reels of gang members attacking their rivals. The rivalry abetted by online feuding took a violent turn on the night of November 6, when members of the Baba group went on rampage and tried to target their rivals from the Sarkar group. Police have arrested 11 men and detained seven minors over the murder and the attempted murder.
Pimpri Chinchwad police commissioner Ankush Shinde said, тАЬWe have been observing this worrying trend of more and more youths taking to social media and flaunting weapons like large sickles and firearms in their status messages, or making reels with threats to their rivals. We have been closely monitoring this. We are also keeping a check on their activities. Over the past five months, we have arrested 39 people who had posted status messages or reels with dangerous weapons. We have not just arrested them but also seized their weapons.тАЭ
Shinde said there had been instances when police took action within hours of a social media status being posted. тАЬWe have reason to believe that stringent action will result in putting a check on such activities. We are also in the process of invoking the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against some of these groups. Most of these people are very young,тАЭ he said.
An officer from Pimpri Chinchwad policeтАЩs crime branch said the majority of them were in the 16-25 age group. тАЬWe have observed that these groups have one dominant person leading them. Some of them have not yet shown their involvement in cases of extortion or physical offences. But such violent streaks of uploading social media posts with weapons can be looked at as a precursor to serious criminal activities and it is important they are stopped well in advance. Efforts are also being taken to counsel these youths with the help of their parents, family members, school and college authorities and social organisations,тАЭ said the officer who has been part of the crackdown.
Asked about the weapons brandished by the youths, a crime branch officer said, тАЬIn many cases these are large, sharp sickles, known as Koyta or Palghan locally. These weapons are mostly sourced locally. In some cases, they have been found to be in possession of countrymade firearms. Most of these firearms, or Kattas, have been sourced from illegal weapons makers in Madhya PradeshтАЩs districts on the Maharashtra border.тАЭ
