LUCKNOW: A daring heist, just hours after midnight at the Aminabad showroom of city’s leading jewellery firm, Lala Jugal Kishore and Bankers, sent ripples through the state capital’s busy trading hub and jolted the Lucknow Police brass into action.
The precision, skill and dare of the burglars can be gauged from the fact that the showroom was only metres away from the Aminabad Kotwali and neither cops or the owner was aware of the break-in till Friday noon when employees found locks smashed and gold and diamonds jewellery worth several lakhs missing. Cops don’t rule out an insider hand in the heist.
When the owner, Arvind Rastogi alias Guddu, reached the showroom, he was shocked to find the unit on the ground floor ransacked with shelves and safes emptied of valuables. CCTV cameras were blacked out and iron gates leading to the showroom melted down and prised open. Guddu told police he downed shutters and locked the shop on Wednesday night before going home. “Since Aminabad observes a weekly closure on Thursday, I returned on Friday to find my showroom burgled,” he said. Lucknow police commissioner, D K Thakur along with senior officers rushed to the spot and hand over investigations to a special task force. Forensic teams too arrived to collect samples.
The burglars were well versed with the topography of the area and layout of the showroom, said police. “They first scaled an abandoned building adjacent to the jewellery shop, smashed the gate and leapt to the terrace of the three-storeyed firm. Armed with gas cutters, they cut through the iron door on the rooftop and drilled through three gates before engineering another break-in on the ground floor to reach the showroom.
Talking to TOI, police commissioner D K Thakur said, “Prima facie it appears to be an inside job as the criminals were acquainted with every nook and corner of the showroom. They entered the building from the terrace to break into the shop, three floors below. They also knew where the jewellery was stashed.”
Additional deputy commissioner of police, west zone, Rajesh Srivastava, called it the handiwork of a professional gang adept in use of gas cutters. “They recced the area and planned the raid in advance, targeting the showroom by scaling a desolate building alongside. We have detained some people for questioning,” he said. Trader bodies of the city met law minister Brajesh Pathak on Friday and demanded swift arrest of the criminals and return of stolen valuables.