Among UP Police’s new challenges in Prayagraj are ‘gangs’ run by school students

PRAYAGRAJ: The Prayagraj Police has set up a special team to identify members of new groups that have surfaced on and off social media, many of them comprising school students, who have fought for supremacy on the city’s streets, police officers said after the arrest of 10 juveniles, said to be members of one such gang that called itself, ‘Immortal’.

The 10 teenagers, students of classes 9 to 12 at the city’s well-known schools, were arrested along with one youth, an 18-year-old, on charges of setting off small explosions using crude bombs in parts of Prayagraj over the past few weeks and months. “Many of them are sons of lawyers, government employees, teachers, contractors and businessmen,” said a police officer who is part of the district’s special team.

Now, the police are trying to identify and arrest members of rival groups that are still active and take them down. There is one group that calls itself ‘Tandav’, another calls itself ‘Maya’, a third ‘Ramdal’ and a fourth, ‘Jaguar’.

Half of the 35 people arrested by the Prayagraj Police during the past month for the crude bomb explosions are minors.