Chennai: This ‘Bullet’ cannot be dodged

CHENNAI: In police circles, monikers are usually reserved for criminals to distinguish them from those with similar names. The one that has stuck to head constable R Saravana Kumar of Abhiramapuram station is thanks to his prowess in recovering stolen Royal Enfields.
“Bullet Sarvanan does it again. After seizure of 24 bullet bikes few days back, he got another catch of 14 stolen bikes,” read a tweet from police commissioner Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal on Thursday.
Son of a retired deputy superintendent of police, Saravanan, now 40, joined the force as a constable in 2003 in Thanjavur. He was posted to Chennai in 2011 and in 2013 came to the Kotturpuram police station. He lives with his wife Tamil Sindhu and their two daughters at the Kilpauk police quarters.
He first probed the theft of a Bullet two years ago, but it became a ‘speciality’ from this August, when a colleague’s Rs 2 lakh bike was stolen. After surfing through footage from several CCTV cameras over two months, Saravanan managed to trace the vehicle.
Until now, he says, he has visited nearly 200 places, checking feed from at least 2 5cameras daily and collecting footage from nearly 300 cameras.
“I always move around with a data cable, mini laptop, pen drives and a wireless mouse. The impulse has become such that I always look for suspects even when I am out with family,” he says.
In October, after Saravanan single-handedly busted a gang and helped recover 26 stolen Royal Enfields, joint commissioner of police (east) R Sudhakar took to twitter to post Saravanan’s photograph with the retrieved bikes. The tweet went viral and the moniker stuck.
“My senior officials have been very helpful. I used to discuss the case details with the joint commissioner,” says Saravanan, who has recovered 46 bikes.
Two days ago, after tracing a Bullet, he invited its owner, a techie, to a tea shop to hand over the vehicle in a pleasant surprise. Saravanan is also good at cracking snatching cases, say his colleagues. While attached to the Kotturpuram police station, he single-handedly fought a mobile phone snatcher and nabbed him.