Surat: Crime branch sleuths of the city police arrested two persons on Saturday for their alleged involvement in the loot of diamonds worth Rs 20 crore from Katargam here on March 14. Police have managed to recover around 2,200 carat of diamonds looted by the robbers.
Arjun alias Arvind Santnarayan Pande (34), a resident of Mansamishra village in Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh, and Manvendra alias Manish Krishnakumar Thakur (26), a resident of Jallapur village in Ambedkar Nagar district of UP, were arrested from Uttar Pradesh itself. Pande was staying in the city since the past few years and planned to start a security service agency here. He worked with a firm that provided professional training to job aspirants. Thakur was unemployed and had recently shifted to the city.
Police have also identified involvement of Mohit Bishwapratap Rana, a resident of Malkipur in Faizabad, UP, in the loot. Police are yet to arrest Rana. Police investigation revealed that the looted material was handed over to Pande by the other accused. Pande kept the diamonds at the residence of his brother-in-law Vinod Tiwari in Adajan area of the city to avoid getting nabbed with the looted material. Meanwhile, the other accused had already left the city by then.
“Majority of the accused involved in the offence are from outside the city. We are working to arrest them. They had been called by Pande to carry out the loot. They escaped soon after carrying out the loot,” assistant commissioner of police, crime branch, R R Sarvaiya said.
Police are yet to recover the weapons used by the accused. Police suspect four rounds were fired by the robbers from a country-made pistol on the car of the victims. Police are not yet clear how Vijay Miyani and Prakash Miyani were injured by the robbers.
“Teams belonging to city police have done a good job to detect the crime at the earliest. We have recovered the looted valuable in entirety. We are holding discussions with people from the diamond industry to prevent such incidents in future,” city police commissioner Satish Sharma said.
The two accused in police custody with the seized booty
