Four held over Rs 14-crore gold ornament heist in Jabalpur; valuables with Jharkhand gang: Police

Jabalpur, Aug 17 (PTI) Four men have been arrested for their alleged role in the recent robbery of gold jewellery and cash worth about Rs 14 crore from a small finance bank’s branch in Jabalpur, police said on Sunday.

The arrested persons include three locals and a person from the Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh. They are accused of providing logistics to a Jharkhand-based gang that committed the heist and helping it flee with the valuables, they said.

Additional Superintendent of Police Suryakant Sharma said the robbery was planned inside a jail in Raigarh in Chhattisgarh, where one of the arrested persons had met the Jharkhand gang members.

Three helmet-wearing youths looted about 15 kg of gold and Rs 5 lakh in cash at gunpoint from the ESAF Small Finance Bank’s branch in the Khitola area on the morning of August 11, he said.

Two gang members waited outside on motorcycles. The gang robbed gold ornaments and cash worth about Rs 14 crore in just 20 minutes when four employees were present in the bank branch, he said.

According to Sharma, local resident Rais Singh Lodhi had come in contact with the Jharkhand gang when he was in the Raigarh jail in connection with a drugs case.

As part of the robbery plan, the five-member gang stayed in a rented house arranged by Lodhi’s accomplice Sonu Varman using Lodhi’s documents. The gang members waited for 10 days before striking, the official said.

Another accused, Hemraj, financed a new motorcycle used in the crime. After the robbery, the gang was escorted to Damoh, where one Vikas Chakravarty arranged for their food and train tickets to Jharkhand via Kolkata Express, the official said.

Lodhi, Sonu Varman, Hemraj and Chakravarty have been taken into custody. The Jharkhand gang carried the stolen gold ornaments, promising to convert them into gold biscuits before distributing everyone's shares, said the official.

Police have recovered two motorcycles, four mobile phones, one country-made pistol, four cartridges and Rs 1.83 lakh in cash from the arrested persons, the official said, adding that five police teams are searching for the gang. PTI COR LAL NR