Three held for jewellery shop heist in Jamshedpur; arms, vehicles seized

Jamshedpur, Sep 18 (PTI) Three members of an inter-state gang allegedly involved in looting gold jewellery from a shop in Jamshedpur's Sonari area have been arrested, a senior police officer said on Thursday.

A country-made pistol with two live cartridges of 7.65 mm bore, a car, two motorcycles, and five mobile phones, including three smartphones, were seized from the accused, police said.

Addressing a press conference here, SP (City) Kumar Shivashish said a special investigation team headed by DSP (CCR-cum-HQ-2) Manoj Thakur was formed on basis of an input received by East Singhbhum SSP Piyush Pandey recently.

Acting swiftly, the SIT conducted raid in Bihar's Nawada district and picked up one Vishnu Shankar Rai (28) from his home, SP said.

During interrogation, Rai provided leads that helped the team apprehend Saurabh Mehta alias Sonu (22) from Mali police station area in Bihar’s Aurangabad district and Suraj Kumar (23) from Hariharganj police station area in Jharkhand’s Palamu district, the SP said.

All the three were formally arrested following their confession about their involvement in the incident, Shivashish said.

Rai told police he had thrown the firearm in a bush near Dobo bridge under Sonari police station while fleeing after committing the crime.

Police recovered the firearm following the revelation, he added.

On September 3, over a dozen criminals in disguise of customers entered reputed jewellery shop Vardhman Jewellers situated near busy Gudri Bazar under Sonari police station and looted gold ornaments worth over Rs 6 lakh at gun point.

The also hit the owner, Pankaj Jain, on his head with the pistol butt and injured him. Jain underwent treatment in Tata Main Hospital. PTI BS MNB