A 40-year-old jeweller, along with his two accomplices, allegedly staged a robbery of 2.6 kg gold at his office in central Delhi’s Chandni Mahal. He wanted to get bank loan worth ₹61 lakh waived, the police said on Sunday.
They added that the accused, who tried to mislead the investigators, do not have previous involvement in the crime.
Abhijeet Samanta, who has been dealing in jewellery making for the last four years, hatched the plan as he was not making much profit, mostly due to the lockdown. He along with his accomplices — Farhan (38), a property dealer, and Munna (28), who worked at a garage — staged the fake robbery.
While Farhan arranged for a toy gun, Munna executed the robbery by venturing into the office wearing a burkha.
The matter came to fore when Samanta told the police about the “robbery”. He said at 8.30 p.m. on Saturday, he collected a payment of ₹50,000 from a jeweller and went to office when a burkha-clad woman entered the premises and held him at gunpoint. He alleged that the woman slapped him and also snatched ₹50, 000 and keys of lockers from him. He said she made him open the locker and then tied his hands, legs and mouth with the cloth. Next, she fled the spot with jewellery and cash. During the investigation, the CCTV footages of different cameras were analysed and it was noticed that the entry of the woman was friendly and behaviour of the complainant was also suspicious, said DCP (Central) Sanjay Bhatia.
Finally, after a six-hour interrogation, Samanta broke down and confessed to the police about the conspiracy.
During interrogation, Samanta said in order to expand his business, he had availed a loan of ₹61 lakh from three different banks against the gold stock.
Since 2018, his business was not going well and he failed to achieve his targets and finally due to the lockdown, he was not in a position to deposit the EMI of his loans, the DCP said.
To waive the loans, he committed the crime along with his accomplices, the police added.