Patna, Sept. 16: Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel in Gaya today busted a 25-member gang from Uttar Pradesh, which used to steal luggage, cash, mobiles and ATM cards posing as pinddaanis (people coming to pay obeisance to ancestors) in Gaya and Bodhgaya.

Twenty members of the gang had hired rooms in Gaya's Murli Hill Vairagi locality to prey on pinddaanis.

The police acted following a complaint lodged by a Madhya Pradesh-based college teacher with the Gaya GRP on Friday. Vijay Prakash Singh, in his complaint, alleged that his wife had been duped of Rs 13,000, a mobile and two ATM cards.

Vijay, who hails from Saran district, was waiting to catch a train from platform number 1 of Gaya railway station. Two men with tonsured heads approached Vijay's wife posing as pinddaanis and complained of burning sensation in their eyes. When the woman tried to help them, one of the thieves stole the cash, mobile and other valuables from the trousers of her husband, who had gone to the washroom. Once Vijay returned five minutes later, he found his valuables missing. On lodging an FIR with the GRP, footage from the CCTV installed at the platform was checked and the identity of the thieves was ascertained. Later, the police conducted a raid at their hideout in Murli Hill Vairagi, adjacent to Gaya railway station, and arrested the accused. The cops were taken aback when they came to know that the gang had come to Gaya from Uttar Pradesh.

'The members of the gang, aged between 20 and 65 years, are residents of UP's Gonda district. Most members are from a particular village called Matbaria under the jurisdiction of Motiganj police station,' said the Gaya GRP station house officer Parshuram Singh.

During interrogation, the arrested revealed that they worked in shifts to commit crimes in the garb of pinddaanis. They had got their heads tonsured to appear as people willing to perform pinddaan on the banks of river Falgu.

The gang, headed by Jhigna, used to target people between Gaya and Bodhgaya and at times, at railway platforms. 'They had hired rooms before the start of the 15-day fair during which lakhs of people from different parts of the country and abroad visit the city,' the SHO told The Telegraph over phone.

The police recovered the cash and other valuables stolen from Vijay. The kingpin, Jhigna, told interrogators that they had come to Gaya for the first time though they had attended village fairs in Bihar on earlier occasions.

A police team will visit Gonda district to collect details about the inter-state gang of thieves.