The police in Karnataka’s Kalaburagi city announced on Monday that they cracked a daylight robbery of gold and cash worth Rs 3 crore after a Pav Bhaji that the crime’s mastermind paid for using a digital wallet helped them arrest three suspects in the case.
The police also recovered gold ornaments worth Rs 2.15 crore from the arrested suspects, identified as Ayodhya Prasad Chouhan, 48, Farooq Ahmed Malik, 40, and Sohail Shaikh alias Badshah, 30. Farooq, a native of West Bengal, was a gold merchant in Kalaburgi and Sohail, who hails from Mumbai, is a tailor.
On July 11, four masked robbers allegedly entered a gold jewellery shop owned by Marthula Malik. They allegedly tied his hands and feet with a rope before opening the locker, and made away with gold ornaments weighing 3 kg and cash.
However, according to the police, the shop’s owner claimed that only 805 g of gold had gone missing to hide the undisclosed gold he possessed in his shop.
Commissioner of Police S D Sharanappa said that the police could seize 2.865 kg of gold and Rs 4.80 lakh in cash from the accused. A police officer said that Farooq was the mastermind behind the robbery. He had suffered huge losses and his debt had shot up to Rs 40 lakh.
On 11 July, the accused, armed with guns, allegedly attacked the shop in the heart of the city and stole the gold and cash. The police formed five teams to nab them.
An officer told indianexpress.com that the police initially started to follow the accused through CCTV footage collected from the vicinity.
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“Before the robbery, the accused came to the spot and had a last-minute discussion. Farooq was also present. After they left for the shop, Farooq bought a pav bhaji paying Rs 30 through Phone Pe. He was monitoring the robbery. The others returned after the robbery and fled the spot along with Farooq. We checked the payment made and got the contact number. We found that the number belonged to Farooq. It was a major lead,” the police officer said.
While the suspects had abandoned their mobile phones, police teams camped in their hometowns, waiting for them. The suspects melted the gold ornaments, sold some of the gold and returned home, only to get caught, the police said. “We are looking for two more accused, named Arbaz and Sajid, in the case,” the police officer added.
The investigation revealed that the suspects used a gun-shaped lighter to scare their victims during the robbery and that they fled to Mumbai by bus after the robbery and parted ways from there.
Marthula Malik, the jeweller, later admitted that 3 kg of gold had been stolen from his store, the police said, adding that they were investigating him as well.