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Bihar: Two held for daylight robbery at jewellery store
Six men robbed a Tanishq jewellery store in Bihar, stealing ₹25 crore in gold and silver. Police arrested two suspects and recovered much of the loot.
A clutch of men walked into a branch of a prominent jewellery store in Bihar’s Ara city posing as customers Monday morning, overpowered the security guard and robbed the outlet of gold and silver pieces worth ₹25 crore, said police, who arrested two suspects and recovered much of the loot hours later.
The swift recovery was in part owing to thieves who appeared to throw caution to the wind. Just one of the six was wearing a mask, which helped police scour through the store’s CCTV footage and match it with security tapes from across the city, in Bhojpur district.
Six criminals arrived outside the Tanishq showroom, in Gopali Chowk, on three motorcycles soon after it opened on Monday, said investigators.
“At first, two of them entered the store around 10.30am posing as customers. The rest entered later,” said Bhojpur superintendent of police Raj, who goes by a single name.
The men thrashed the guard and snatched his gun, before assaulting two staff and pulling down the shutters in the store. They then pulled out pistols, trained them at all the showroom staff, rounding them up in a corner. CCTV footage shows them pulling out jewellery from the shelves and display units and throwing them into bags.
One of the employees tried to make a call on the 112 police number, said showroom manager Kumar Mrityunjay. “But they did not respond immediately,” he added.
Police soon formed several teams to apprehend the thieves as officers began examining footage from CCTV cameras across the city.
Soon, police near the Ara-Babura Road spotted six people on three motorbikes speeding towards Doriganj. When asked to stop, all of them sped up further and as a patrol tried to block them off, one bike tried to ram the police vehicle.
Officers then gave the bike a chase, at which point one of the bikers fired at the police. Two of them were injured as police fired in retaliation.
“Two suspects, two pistols, 10 cartridges, jewellery looted from Tanishq showroom kept in two big bags, out of three, and a Pulsar motorcycle have been recovered. A team has been formed immediately and raids are being conducted to arrest the other suspects involved in this case,” said the superintendent of police.
The arrested criminals were identified as Vishal Gupta of Dighwara situated in Saran district and Kunal Kumar of Semra, Sonepur.
