Hijacked jewellery shop car abandoned near Madukkarai

COIMBATORE: A private jewellery shop’s car, which was hijacked along with gold jewellery worth Rs 98.05 lakh, was found abandoned near Thendral Nagar in Madukkarai on Tuesday. However, there was no sign of the valuables in the car. Police have been on the lookout for 10 highway robbers after a car belonging to a private jewellery shop was waylaid on the Cochin-Coimbatore bypass road (near Navakarai) and hijacked along with the 3.107 kg gold jewellery on Monday.

The jewellery was being transported from the jeweller’s Thrissur branch to Coimbatore, when ten people in two cars attacked the two employees in the car and escaped with the valuables. Police were trying to track down the robbers with the help of CCTV footage collected from various places on the highway. Meanwhile, Madukkarai police located the hijacked car. 

On information, officials from the fingerprints bureau arrived at the spot. The jeweller’s driver R Arjun (22) and his aide S Wilfred (31) of Thrissur were asked to report at Thendral Nagar to elaborate how the robbers forced them out of the car. Details from their narrative were used to lift fingerprints from particular spots in the car. A dog squad was also roped in to locate the direction the robbers had taken after abandoning the car. 

One of the special teams headed by the Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mutharasu has been collecting details of vehicles used by the robbers, while another team has been rushed to Kerala to identify the person in a CCTV footage. Sources in the special team told Express that CCTV footage collected from the scene did not show any signs of struggle.

The two men in the jeweller’s car did not seem to have been forced out. The robbers got them out of the car within a few minutes; the robbers did not even have their faces covered. Hence, they suspected the involvement of former employees; the angle of Arjun and Wilfred colluding with them too has not been brushed aside. However, a senior official said that they could not come to any conclusion in the matter of the two drivers. “After securing the accused and interrogating them can the role of the two persons, if any, can be uncovered,” the senior official said, adding that the two men have been working in the jewellery shop for about six to seven years.

Sources in the special team told Express that one of the cars used by the robbers was an Alto. The vehicle was registered in the name of a Chennai-based person. However, when the said person was contacted, it was learnt that the he had sold it a person in Coimbatore, but had not updated the details at the regional transport office, they said, adding that the accused would be identified by Tuesday night.