TIRUCHY: In a Hollywood style heist, two burglars decamped with jewellery worth several crores from a famous store on Wednesday morning in Tiruchy. Drilling a hole to gain entry into the Lalithaa Jewellery showroom, the burglars, who were wearing animal masks, stole jewels weighing a little over 30 kg, right under the nose of six watchmen on the night shift.
The jewellery store is situated at the busiest Chathiram Bus Stand in the city. When the employees of the gold store came to open it as usual in the morning, they were shocked to find the entire ground floor empty.
On receiving information about the burglary, a team led by city police commissioner A Amalraj rushed to the spot and inspected the showroom and its vicinity. While examining the CCTV footage, the two robbers were seen with their faces covered with animal masks. They entered the showroom through the hole they had drilled on the wall which was on the side of an empty space belonging to a popular school. The CCTV footage also showed the robbers stuffing all the ornaments in their bags.
The police suspect the involvement of a third person who was probably waiting outside to collect the stolen booty.
Going by the CCTV recordings, the robbery took place between 2 to 4 am on Wednesday.
The robbers also used gloves to cover their fingerprints and spilt chilli powder to confuse the sniffer dogs. The carefully crafted plan made it difficult for forensic experts and police dog squad to detect the clues from the crime scene.
Meanwhile, owner of Lalithaa Jewellery Kiran Kumar arrived at the showroom from Chennai. Addressing the media after inspecting the shop, Kumar said, “As many as 800 gold, platinum and diamond ornaments kept on the ground floor valued at Rs 13 crore has been stolen. I am satisfied with the police investigation and they are taking all the efforts they can to catch the burglars. I hope they will nab them and recover the jewels soon.”