nagpur more than 145 criminals operating in different gangs in various pockets of the city have been rounded up in the last few days following a stringent order by city police chief k venkatesh with civic polls and winter session of the legislature drawing close the decision to go after the goons was announced in the monthly crime meeting by the police chief and crime branch was asked to be nodal agency for action the unsettling crimes beginning with murder of 74yearold eknath nimgade on september 6 at lal imli chowk firing on real estate dealer mohammad yasin quereshi on september 12 at omkar nagar and then gunning down of sachin somkuwar at gokulpeth are learnt to have run alarm bells in mumbai too director general of police dgp satish mathur rushed to city earlier this month though officially the visit was for a meeting of tiger cell of dgp is member there was a strong speculation that citys suddenly rising crime graph played a bigger role behind the state top cops visit mathur in a press meet during the visit had underlined the need of rounding up the known criminals and gangsters as one of the prime targets for the cops in the subsequent crime meeting in city venkatesh is learnt to have reiterated the same instruction crime branch then started compiling the names and details of the gangsters and known criminals in different parts of the city who were roaming free the list was provided to police stations to round up goons slapping them with different preventive actions it is learnt police stations have started rounding up the criminals who are out on bail or due to acquittals in cases against them crime branch has also started a parallel drive to round up criminals and handing them over to police stations for further action a senior officer said the latest initiative had helped put a brake on the crime scene that was better in october than last month the gangs were already identified the information was updated some gangsters and aides are behind bars and now the rest of operatives are facing action he said the criminals are now feeling the heat as police stations and crime branch both are after them the officer said