Four persons, including two policemen and another waiting for sub-inspector posting, were arrested for waylaying and looting close to 300 sovereigns of gold jewellery from a jeweller in Sriperumbudur on December 10.
The police and the jeweller shared the pictures of the stolen jewellery with all pawn brokers and this helped them zero in on the accused.
The names of the constables were given as Thamizharasan of Manampathy police station and Kathir of Thirukazhukundram police station. Both belong to the 2017 batch. A search operation has been launched for the other members of the gang.
According to the police, Mahendran, a goldsmith, sold jewellery to shops around Sunguvarchatram, Sriperumbudur and Thandalam in Kancheepuram district.
On December 10, he and his employees Asif and Raj Kumar were going in an autorickshaw from Tiruvallur to distribute the jewellery. Around 7 p.m., a seven-member gang, riding motorbikes, stopped them near Mambakkam in Sriperumbudur and robbed them of 300 sovereigns of jewellery. Three special teams were formed to crack the case.
K. Karthikeyan, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Sriperumbudur, said the police collected the pictures from Mahendran and sent it to pawn brokers across the State.
“The jewellery had the logo of the shop name on it. We knew they had to sell the loot somewhere and we requested the receivers to alert us in case someone tried to sell the valuables,” he said.
Tip from Kumbakonam
The police got an alert from a receiver in Kumbakonam stating that someone had come to sell the jewellery.
Upon nabbing the accused, it was found they were agents and they gave information about Ranjith, who had served a sentence in prison.
The police nabbed him and found that Santosh, who had earlier worked for Mahendran, had plotted the robbery.
“Santosh was a friend of the two constables and he had told them that Mahendran was an easy target. For this, the policemen introduced Ranjith, whom they used escort while he was serving his sentence, to Santosh. All of them then committed the crime,” said a police source.
