Valapattanam theft accused held, cash, jewellery recovered
After the arrest of the accused on Saturday, the police also recovered ₹1.21 crore and 267 sovereigns of gold from his home
The accused of Valapattanam theft case, wherein ₹1 crore cash and 300 units of gold were stolen from the home of a wholesale rice trader last month, has been arrested, the Kannur police said on Monday, adding that he was the neighbour of the trader.
The accused, identified as Lijeesh, was a welding worker and an accused in a few other cases of robbery, police said. After his arrest on Saturday, the police also recovered ₹1.21 crore and 267 sovereigns of gold from his home.
The theft was reportedly conducted between November 20 and 21 at the home of KP Ashraf, a wholesale rice trader, near the Valapattanam railway station in Kannur district while the family was away for several days to attend a private function in Madurai. The FIR was filed at the Valapattanam police station on November 25 after the family came back home to find the money and gold missing.
Officers of the Kannur police told reporters that the special team formed to probe the case was able to crack it with the help of multiple CCTV footage, fingerprints found at the crime scene and over 110 call data records (CDRs). The police suspected that the thief could be someone who knew Ashraf closely and had intimate details of his home.
Kannur city police commissioner Ajit Kumar told reporters, “We reviewed around 115 call data records and went through footage of over 100 CCTVs. We examined the fingerprints of 76 persons, checked the background and current status of around 67 people who have the same modus operandi and questioned a total of 215 people.”
The officer said that Lijeesh, after breaking into the home of the victim by slicing a window grill, had accidentally turned a CCTV camera towards him, capturing his bald head in the visuals.
“We knew then that a man with a bald head was the culprit. Using that lead, we looked at some other cases of robbery in the district where the same modus operandi was used. During the search, we found that there was a case in Kechery which had remained unsolved. The accused’s role in both cases was suspected to be similar. We compared the fingerprint found in the Kechery crime scene with this case and it was found to be a match,” he said.
The police had detained Lijeesh based on suspicion after reviewing the CCTV visuals and interrogating him as part of speaking to locals in the neighbourhood. After the fingerprints matched in the two cases, continued questioning in custody led to the accused admitting his crime, officers said.
The money and gold recovered from the accused’s home was found carefully concealed in a secret compartment inside his bed, the officer added.
With PTI inputs