By IANS,
New Delhi/Chandigarh : Looted jewellery worth over Rs.10 crore ($2.2 million) was recovered and eight people arrested from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh for the biggest heist in Chandigarh in which a gold showroom was targeted Jan 11. Four other accused are absconding, police said Sunday.
The eight people were arrested Saturday by Chandigarh Police in coordination with Delhi Police.
Those arrested were identified as Paras Soni, 26,(the kingpin of the gang), Manav Soni, 24, Bhura Qureshi, 28, Upender Singh, 19, Anuj Kumar, 21, Ajay Singh, 24, Bhura Tomar, 18, and Sonu Raghav, 19.
“In a joint action, Chandigarh Police and Delhi Police have in just 72 hours solved the sensational robbery case with the arrest of eight people and have recovered all the jewellery looted from the showroom,” said Delhi Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta.
Gupta also said that it was a perfect example of interstate coordination.
Chandigarh’s Inspector General of Police P.K. Srivastava, who was in New Delhi to personally monitor the case, said: “After getting inputs, we shared it with Delhi Police and with joint efforts and three-day raids, the robbers have been apprehended and the entire looted property has been recovered.”
Bhura Qureshi was arrested from PVR Priya in Vasant Vihar and some looted jewellery was recovered from him.
“During interrogation, Qureshi confirmed his involvement and divulged details about the kingpin, Paras Soni, and 10 others,” said Delhi’s Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) H.G.S. Dhaliwal.
Following this, joint raids were conducted. “The joint team arrested Paras Soni along with his brother Manav Soni from Vaishali in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.”
“Paras’ five other associates Upender, Ajay, Bhura and Anuj, all resident of Pilkhua in Ghaziabad were arrested,” said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Chandigarh Naunihal Singh, who is also in New Delhi.
The looted gold and diamond jewellery worth Rs.10-12 crore, Rs.2.50 lakh and other articles were also recovered, he said.
Police also recovered about 1,000 mobile phones of Nokia and Samsung brand, along with accessories, worth Rs.1 crore. These mobile phones were stolen by the accused in a separate burglary at a mobile phone warehouse located on the Delhi-Haryana border.
During interrogation, they revealed that Paras, a native of Dilshad Garden in east Delhi, hatched the plan for the dacoity along with brother Manav and others two months ago.
“They conducted a reccee in the Manimajra area, Chandigarh, and targeted the Tanishq showroom. For the operation, they used a tempo, a gas cutter, police uniforms, weapons, ropes, sedatives and monkey caps,” said the SSP.
Five of them wore police uniforms and acted as members of the special staff of Panchkula police and took the guard of the showroom, Dinanath, and the guard of a neighbouring shop, Swarn, to the rear of the showroom on the pretext that a dead body was lying there.
They tied up the guards there and forced them to take sedative tablets. “With the help of implements and gas cutter, they broke open the showroom from the front side,” said Singh.
“Without realising that their movements were being recorded in surveillance cameras, they started ransacking the showroom and collected the jewellery within 15 minutes and left in their tempo,” added Singh.
They procured the police uniforms from Azad Market in Delhi.
“Umar Daraj, Ali Raja, Satender and Nadeem are still absconding,” said Gupta.
“They are involved in many cases and we are still investigating into the matter,” added Gupta.