Jaipur police cracks Muthoot gold robbery case of Kolkata
The same gang of robbers had committed gold robbery at a Muthoot branch in Kolkata.
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Jaipur: Jaipur police has revealed that the four robbers arrested in connection with robbery of 26 of gold from Muthoot Finance’s Mansarovar branch in Jaipur were involved in a similar loot in Kolkata in December last year. They had carried out robberies in Visakhapatnam and Nagpur also. The mastermind of the Jaipur robbery who has the gold is still on the run. Police teams are carrying out raids at several places in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to locate him.
Police commissioner Sanjay Agarwal said that these robbers were habitual offenders.
“A similar robbery at Muthoot Finance’s branch in Kolkata had taken place in December last year. They had looted 31 kg of gold from the branch and managed to dodge arrest so far,” said Agarwal.
The mastermind, identified as Rajesh alias Subodh, is a tech-savvy criminal who used Google map to chalk out an escape route after committing the robbery at Muthoot Mansarovar branch on July 21. Subodh and his gang members used to keep a tab on the police activities by going through e-papers of local newspapers.
The four accused who have been arrested have been identified as Subham alias Setu alias Sibbu Singh (21), Pankaj alias Bulla Yadav (25), Vishal Kumar Yadav alias Vikki alias Rahman (27) and Rahul. Rahul was arrested from Jharkhand while others were nabbed from Bihar. They are residents of Bihar and UP, police said.
Vishal, Subham and Pankaj conducted a recee of all Muthoot finance branches in Jaipur and selected the Mansarovar branch as their target. They went to Delhi where they met Subodh and Rahul. They chalked out a plan to commit the robbery and came to Niwai in Tonk after buying two bikes and took a room on rent there. They stayed in the room for seven days. They came to Jaipur on August 18 and committed the robbery three days later.
“They never spoke to each-other on phone. They would keep a tab on police activities by browsing through e-papers of newspapers online,” said the commissioner.
Subodh gave Rs 1 lakh to Subham and Rs 5 lakh to Vishal and asked them to part ways. He kept the gold.
The robbers had walked into the office of Muthoot Finance situated at Madhyam Marg on Rajat Path around 12.48 pm on July 21. There were four employers and two customers in the loan finance company office.
The robbers asked them to stand in a corner and took the keys of the locker from the manager. When the manager, Satyanarayan Tosniwal, refused to hand over the keys, they thrashed him. The manager relented following which two robbers opened the locker and collected the gold.
There was a total of 57 kg gold jewellery in the branch’s lockers. When the robbery was under progress, Toshniwal insisted that he wanted to go to the washroom as he was sick. He went into the washroom and sounded a security alarm. The robbers had stuffed nearly 26.7 kg gold into a bag, but they had to leave the god and run away due to the alarm.
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