New Delhi: Four Italians, who are believed to be members of a global network of graffiti artists, have been arrested in Gujarat for defacing metro train wagons in a couple of Indian cities.
The same gang was behind spraying the words ‘SPLASH’ and ‘BURN’ on four coaches of the Kochi Metro a few months ago, sources said.
The Gujarat Crime Branch and the Anti-Terror squad took Cudini Gianluca, Baldo Sacha, Starinieri Daniele and Capecci Paolo into custody from a flat in the Kothawala area of Ahmedabad.
They were nabbed for spraying graffiti on two coaches of the Ahmedabad Metro after entering the restricted metro parking yard.
They painted graffiti on the stationed metro coaches on October 1, just hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first phase of the Ahmedabad Metro. The four were identified after cops examined the CCTV images collected from the spot.
The accused scaled the boundary wall of the Apparel Park Depot at Gomtipur before entering the metro parking shed and defaced the coaches by spraying the word ‘TAZ’. The foreign nationals are members of the ‘Rail Goons’ gang, who paint graffiti on trains after visiting various cities across the globe, police said.
Rail Goons is an international group of graffiti artists notorious for displaying their creative skills in public places. Graffiti damage by Rail Goons on public properties and vehicles is common abroad.
Rail Goons were suspected soon after the mysterious appearance of graffiti on coaches of Kochi Metro.
The artists had encroached the high-security Muttom Metro parking yard and defaced the coaches, police then said.
The graffiti had the word ‘BURN’ spray-painted in bold and big letters on one side of a coach which was part of the ‘Pamba’ rake. Adjacent to it, the words ‘First hit Kochi’ are painted in small size. At two other spots, the number ‘22’ was also seen.
