SALEM: A couple of day after the break-in at a private finance company’s Gangavalli branch came to light, the local police on Thursday claimed to have cracked the case with the arrest of a staffer. However, the case took an intriguing turn when the arrested staffer confessed to having stolen 690 sovereigns of gold, but denied whisking away `1.35 lakh from the strong room. Police now suspect someone else managed to sneak away with the cash even before they reached the scene.
On Tuesday, the branch manager of Muthoot Mini Financiers Private Limited’s Gangavalli branch lodged a complaint stating 690 sovereigns and `1.35 lakh were looted from the strong room. Police officials found a window on the backside of the building broken open. Three special teams were formed to crack the case.
Meanwhile, the sleuths trailing the perpetrators found out that the locker and strong room were not broken, but opened using keys. This led to their suspecting an insider job.
The officials pulled out a list of past and present employees, and zeroed-in on V Marudhaimani (25), a resident of Thandavarayapuram, on suspicion.
Marudhaimani was a few days earlier transferred from Gangavalli branch to Puthiragoundanpalayam. On being grilled, Marudhaimani to having burgled the jewellery by gaining entry into the strong room using duplicate keys.
Marudhaimani reportedly broke the window on the backside of the building to mislead the investigators into believing they were dealing with burglars. He later hid the jewellery in a rented a house at Jothi nagar in Attur.
While the police arrested Marudhaimani on Thursday and recovered the jewellery from the rented house, sources said that the accused denied role in the missing cash. Sources claimed that police were looking into the burglary from a fresh angle and suspected some other person might have taken away the cash.