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The Chhattisgarh police has arrested two people in connection with a Rs 20-crore burglary from a jewellery store in Delhi earlier this week and recovered around 18.5 kg of gold and diamond ornaments from them, a senior official said on Friday, even as the probe suggested involvement of only one person in the incident.
A joint team of officials from the anti-crime and cyber unit and the Civil Line police station in Bilaspur district carried out the operation while probing a series of thefts in Bilaspur city, Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh told PTI.
Those arrested have been identified as Lokesh Srivas, who is allegedly involved in seven thefts in Bilaspur, and Shiva Chandravanshi, he said.
Acting on a tip-off about Srivas being present in Kawardha town of Chhattisgarh's Kabirdham district, the team conducted a raid there on Wednesday and arrested Chandravanshi along with ornaments worth Rs 23 lakh, he said.
By that time, Srivas had managed to escape, the SP said.
The team then tracked down Srivas to a house under the Smritinagar police station jurisdiction in Durg district and recovered 18.5 kg of gold and diamond jewellery and Rs 12.5 lakh in cash from him, Singh said.
Delhi police officials said they will seek the remand of Srivas after he is produced before the court by the Chhattisgarh police. He will be interrogated about the remaining stolen ornaments. The shop owner had claimed that around 30 kg of jewellery was stolen.
Meanwhile, the Delhi police on Friday said the investigation so far into the burglary case has revealed that only one person was involved in the incident.
A CCTV footage is doing the rounds on social media in which one person, wearing black pants and white T-shirt and with his face covered, is seen roaming inside the jewellery store. In other footage, he is seen entering a building near the store carrying a backpack.
A senior police officer said the crime branch of Durg police informed the Delhi police about a person who they suspected to have committed the burglary in the national capital.
The Durg police nabbed a person who told them during interrogation that his friend had gone to Delhi to commit a "big act". The friend of the arrested person was later identified as Srivas and the Delhi police received his picture, the officials said.
Multiple teams were formed to work out the case and to retrieve the stolen items. Hundreds of CCTV cameras were examined which revealed that a suspect carrying a backpack was found entering the adjoining building on Sunday night, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast Delhi) Rajesh Deo said.
"During our investigation, we rounded up a suspect and matched his face with Srivas which eventually got matched. Srivas was identified as the prime suspect in the case. Through technical surveillance, his location was traced to the (Bhogal) area on Sunday night. He was seen entering the adjoining building on Sunday and exiting on Monday evening. We had his footage and also identified his mode of travel," the DCP said.
As Srivas is a resident of Kabir Dham, Chhattisgarh, efforts were made to identify his mode of transport. Technical surveillance confirmed that the accused had booked a bus from Delhi to Sagar. The bus left ISBT, Kashmere Gate, at 9 pm on Monday. The police got the CCTV footage where Srivas was seen booking his ticket and entering a bus, they said.
In a parallel development, officers from Bilaspur police station had reached the hideout of Srivas at Kabir Dham on Thursday morning from where he managed to escape. However, his associate Shiva was arrested, Deo said.
Around 7 pm, Shiva took the Bilaspur police to the hideout of Srivas at Smiriti Nagar, Bhilai. On Thursday, a team of Delhi police reached Raipur and the location of the accused was found in Bhilai. The Bilaspur plice was also searching Srivas in two theft cases. They conducted a raid and reached at his hideout, when Delhi Police also reached there and nabbed Srivas around 6 am, the police said.
A search was done of the hideout and the stolen jewellery was recovered. The seizure and arrest have been made by Bilaspur police, the Delhi police said.
The investigation so far has revealed that the accused came to the national capital and did a recce two or three times. An expert in targeting jewellery stores, Srivas chose Umrao Singh Jewellers in south Delhi's Bhogal as it is the biggest one in the area. The accused had an idea that he would get a big haul of jewellery, which he got, they said.
The accused had also slept in the showroom before fleeing the spot, the police said.
The Delhi police said they are yet to interrogate the accused as he is in the custody of their Chhattisgarh counterparts.
Investigation revealed that the jewellery was stolen from a store in New Delhi, the Bilaspur SP said, adding that a team of the Delhi police has also arrived in Chhattisgarh and further investigation into the matter is underway.
Mahaveer Prasad Jain, the owner of the jewellery showroom in Delhi, told reporters, "We are thankful to the police. We have seen the pictures of the recovered items and identified those as the ornaments have tags on them. We do not know the arrested people."
The accused broke into the shop, made a hole in the strong room and decamped with ornaments worth more than Rs 20 crore as well as Rs 5 lakh in cash earlier this week.
The jewellery shop had several CCTV cameras but they were damaged around Sunday midnight, the police said.
The owner closed the shop on Sunday around 8 pm and when he opened it on Tuesday around 10.30 am, he got to know about the incident. The shop remains closed on Monday.