Bengaluru: The Bengaluru police (central) have cracked the Jain temple robbery case two months after it was reported in Bharathi Nagar police limits with the arrest of five inter-state robbers, all from Rajasthan.
The accused have been identified as Bharath Sharma (34), Harajiram (23), Shravan Singh (25), Eshwar Lal (26) and Praveen Kumar (27). Another accused in the case Jitendra, who is from Mumbai, is absconding and the police have launched a manhunt.
The accused on April 16 had robbed a Jain temple in Bharathinagar after using a duplicate key to gain entry and had decamped with gold ornaments and other valuables. The police have recovered gold ornaments worth Rs 22 lakh from them.
Robbery was planned for long
One of the accused, Shravan Singh, was working as a construction labour at the temple for the last two years and he had noticed that the temple receives large quantities of gold ornaments as donation. The idol too is decked up with gold ornaments.
He called his friend Haraji Ram to Bengaluru. The duo then hatched a plan to rob valuables from the temple. “Shravan took Haraji Ram around the temple in search of a way to get in, but in vain. Later, they planned to steal the temple key and get it duplicated,” said the police.
“Shravan managed to get the key only in March and they got a duplicate made. Then Haraji called up all the other accused to the city and committed the robbery on April 6 around 2 am and decamped with gold ornaments," the police added.
To make sure no one doubts him, Shravan continued to work at the temple. When the temple staff was looking for the lost key a day before the robbery, Shravan pretended as though he was helping them to look for it.
After a few days, he took emergency leave from his contractor and headed along with the other accused to Mumbai, where they wanted to sell the ornaments with the help of Jitendra.
The police made no headway in the case for about two months. But, a few days ago, Shravan was caught by a constable when he was found talking to a person in a suspicious manner near the BDA complex in Vivek Nagar.
While the interrogation was taking place, the police found that he was involved in the temple theft. They arrested him and also the other accused. Bharath, Praveen, Jitendra and Eshwar were earlier jailed in Rajasthan for robbing a jewellery store. The accused were out of jail on bail.
