Rohtas SP Chandan Kumar Kushwaha with the arrested gang members. Picture by Sanjay Choudhary

Police on Tuesday busted a gang robbing people on highways at night with the help of women.

The gang was operating for a decade on the state and national highways passing through south and central Bihar. Three men, including the kingpin, were arrested on Tuesday from the Sasaram Mufassil police station area. The women are on the run and Rohtas police are conducting raids to nab them.

The women would pretend to be in trouble and approach unsuspecting drivers passing through highways and roads in south and central Bihar. Once the travellers extended help, the women robbed them of their belongings. To their assistance came other members of the gang lurking around, away from alert eyes.

Rohtas superintendent of police (SP) Chandan Kumar Kushwaha told The Telegraph over phone on Wednesday: “The persons arrested have revealed the names of the female members in the gang. Raids are on to apprehend them. They would be brought to book at the earliest.”

He added: “The ringleader, Munna Tiwary, had employed a number of women to waylay people passing through highways in the Rohtas, Kaimur, Buxar and Bhojpur districts. Tiwary, a resident of Jamuar village in Rohtas district, was operating in Shahabad region for over a decade.”

Also arrested on Tuesday were two associates of Tiwary — Pintu Nat, a resident of Mokram village, and Saroj Nat, a native of Bhikhari Bigha in Rohtas district.

Sources said Bihar and Uttar Pradesh accounts for 50 per cent of the total highway robberies in the country.

A police officer in Rohtas said on condition of anonymity: “The gang was also on the radar of Kushwaha’s predecessor Vikas Burman. But Burman (now Siwan SP) failed to nail the gang despite repeated attempts.”

Explaining modus operandi of the inter-state gang, SP Kushwaha said the women used to signal drivers to stop their cars pretending to take help. At this time, the other gang members, waiting a stone’s throw away, would pounce upon the driver as soon as he alighted from the vehicle.

He added that the drivers went ahead to help, unsuspecting of the trouble waiting for them. Unfortunately, the gullible drivers were robbed of their belongings at gunpoint, Kushwaha revealed.

The women were paid anything between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 every month. Far from being in any trouble, they carried cellphones and small weapons in their small bags.

Kushwaha said the police got a clue about the professional gang during the murder investigation of a tractor driver, Sanjay Ram. Ram’s vehicle was hijacked and his body thrown near the famous Tara Chandi temple beside National Highway 2 in Rohtas district, around 150km west of Patna, on November 15 this year.

The gang was mainly active on National Highway 2, state highway 15 and other roads leading to Aurangabad, Bhojpur and Gaya districts. “Similar incidents have been reported from areas falling under the jurisdiction of Kaimur district,” Kushwaha said, adding that the antecedents of the people arrested were being ascertained.

“Such a gang using women to commit highway robberies has come to light for the first time in the region,” he said.