BENGALURU: It was an eclectic combination of partners in crime that puzzled the police. An auditor, an engineering student, a drummer, a sales manager, two auto-rickshaw drivers and a cab driver were all arrested for robbing an Andhra Pradesh based jeweller of Rs 21.5 lakh near Mysore Bank circle on September 9.
The arrested were auditor Manjunath (33), autodrivers Sriram Ramu (32) and Lakshman alias Gopi (29) sales manager at a mobile outlet, Janardhan (25), a cabbie Girish (25) drummer Manjunath (25) and Shivaprasad (23) a civil engineer student. Police say that there are at least three others who are still absconding.
A case of robbery was registered at the Halasuru Gate police station when Mallikarjun was robbed of his cash bag on the busy junction by two bike-borne men. The police who managed to trace the registration number of the bike met a dead-end after they found out the number was fake. Meanwhile, on Tuesday afternoon, Srirampura police under Inspector D B Nagaraju, picked up two people for questioning. Upon interrogation, the detained men confessed to the Chickpet robbery.
Manjunath, who worked for private firms especially for the jewellers in Chickpet also kept a close watch on jewellers who came from Andhra Pradesh to Chickpet. He observed that the men carried a lot of money to buy gold. He then formed the team. Manjunath spent six months planning the heist, the police said.
The gang kept a close watch on jewellers and businessmen coming to buy gold and zeroed in on Mallikarjun, who was a regular visitor. One of the gang members followed Mallikarjun to Andhra Pradesh and back. Just as Mallikarjun got down from the bus, near Mysore Bank circle, the bike-borne duo snatched away his cash bag and fled. The duo then dumped the bag into a car that had other gang members a little distance ahead.
The gang was actually hoping for a bigger heist. “They were hoping that the jeweler would have about '1 crore or even more than that with him. But unfortunately, all Mallikarjun had was '21 lakh from which '12 lakhs was recovered,” the police said.
