6 held for robbing courier boy of diamond, gold

Coimbatore: Six people, one of them a woman, were detained on Thursday for robbing a courier boy of diamond, gold and silver ornaments worth Rs 97 lakh that he was taking to the city airport on February 7.
The accused were identified as Praveena, her husband Dhinakaran of Seeranaickenpalayam, Karthick of Thondamuthur, Venkatesh of Narasipuram, and Shelton and Mohanraj of Kulathupalayam.

According to police, Praveena was a clerical staff with the courier service firm, Air Parcel, on Mill Road and she was aware that courier boy Prithivi Singh, 26, of Rajasthan, was assigned to take a consignment of 5.79kg gold ornaments, 1.42kg silver ornaments and 124.88 carats diamond to the airport on the early morning of February 7.

“She passed on the information to her husband, who hatched a plan to rob the courier boy,” an investigation officer said.

When Prithivi Singh was on his way to the airport at 5.45am on the fateful day, a three-member gang waylaid him near Peelamedu (law & order) police station. They threatened him at knifepoint, sprayed chilli powder on his face, snatched the consignment and sped away on a two-wheeler, the officer said without divulging the names of the trio.

Based on a complaint lodged by the courier boy, police collected CCTV footages from commercial establishments on Mill Road and those near Fun republic mall area. They also employed the cell tower dump technique and collected more than 10 lakh call details from various mobile operators. “We later narrowed down our search to 150 mobile numbers by using advanced technologies. We suspected role of an insider in the robbery and secured Praveena, who spilled the beans on other gang members,” said Sumit Sharan, city police commissioner.

P Perumal, deputy commissioner of police (crime), said the gang had pledged the gold ornaments in various places and special teams were working to recover them. “We hope to recover all the stolen ornaments soon.”