A group of thieves allegedly broke into a jewellery store in Sector 14 by cutting a hole in the concrete roof of the strong room on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday and stole gold and diamond ornaments, police said.

The value of the jewellery stolen had not been estimated till reports last came in. Multiple officers who visited the spot pegged the loss around ₹20 crore, but there was no official confirmation of the same.

The theft took place even as two private security personnel were posted outside the jewellery store that night. According to the police, the guards were unaware of the theft, which was reported by the store when she came in next morning.

“Thieves cut through the roof of the strong room at PC Jewellers. We are yet to establish the total worth of the stolen ornaments,” assistant commissioner of police (crime) Shamsher Singh said, adding that the police were yet to identify the accused.

“The CCTV footage of the robbery was not available either. The accused broke the store’s CCTV cameras. This has made identifying the accused difficult. We are probing all possible angles and will also interrogate current and former employees,” Gurugram police spokesperson Subhash Boken said.

Forensic experts, accompanied by a dog squad, and inspected the spot and collected evidence. Multiple teams from the crime investigation agency (CIA) and Sector 14 police are probing the case.

Talking about the possible modus operandi, police said they found a set of knotted ropes hanging over one side of the two-storey building indicating that these may have been used by the thieves to get to the terrace. The ropes were fastened to bars of a window on the terrace, police said.

The jeweller shares walls with a line of shops and thieves allegedly used their rooftops to reach the terrace.

According to the police, the thieves climbed to the terrace and then walked down an internal staircase behind the building to land on the roof of the strong room. The staircase is part of the building, but is separate from the main showroom located on the ground floor.

A police officer privy to the case said the hole made in the roof of the strong room was only large enough for a lean person to slide through. The officer added that a green-coloured circular blade of a stone cutter was found on the roof.

The jewellery was kept on racks in the strong room, police said.

An FIR was filed at Sector 14 police station under sections 380 (theft) and 457 (house-breaking by night) of the Indian Penal Code, based on a complaint lodged by store manager Sangeeta Jain, Boken said, adding that the police were informed of the theft around 10.30am Monday, when the employees came in for the day and found the strong room compromised.

“We got to know about the theft around 11am and informed police. I can’t tell you anything else at the moment,” Jain said, when asked for a comment.

The security head of the Gurugram branch refused to comment as “police investigation is underway”.

First Published: Dec 11, 2018 16:12 IST