Police have arrested five persons, including a woman, for allegedly terrorising residents of Dahisar Mori and Thakurpada villages in Thane district of Maharashtra by wielding weapons like sword and axe, an official said on Saturday.
They were arrested on Friday, soon after some local residents caught hold of them and handed them over to the police, he said.
"Between 12.15 am and 3.45 am on Friday, the accused moved around these localities carrying swords, choppers and axes in their hands and terrorising the local residents. They banged the doors of several houses and threatened the residents for no valid reason, due to which panic spread among the people," an official of Shil Daighar police station said.
Finally, some residents mustered courage and pinned down the accused before handing them over to the police, who later placed them under arrest, he said.
The accused, identified as Javed Salim Shaikh, Dilawar Farid Shaikh, Sahid Naseer Shaikh, Saad Ahmed and Maria Javed Khan, were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 148 (being armed with a deadly weapon), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation), and also sections of the Arms Act, the official said.
There were some more persons in the gang and the police are trying to nab them, he said, adding that the motive behind their act is being probe.
