NEW DELHI: In perhaps the biggest robbery ever reported in the capital, a jewellery showroom in southeast Delhi's Bhogal area was burgled by at least three unidentified men who took away all the valuables, worth around Rs 25 crore.
In a heist reminiscent of a Bollywood flick, the robbers entered the showroom from the terrace of the 4-story building. To make sure that they did not leave behind any clue, the burglars broke the CCTV cameras and sneaked in from the fourth floor of the building by drilling a hole, possibly with the help of a gas cutter, and reached the ground floor from the stairs where the strongroom was located.
According to police officials present at the spot, the robbers were probably well aware of the fact that they had to only target the basement of the building where a safe was kept and not enter any other floor.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast) Rajesh Deo said that the owner opened the shop around 10 am on Tuesday, found that it was ransacked and made a call to the police.
As the shop remains closed on Mondays, the robbery could have been committed any time from Sunday night. "Their main operation was on the ground floor, while the rest of the three floors were being used for other operations like cutting and manufacturing," the DCP said.
He said that there is a safe (vault) in the jewellery shop, which has a metallic gate from the front while it is surrounded by walls from the three sides. The three suspected robbers went down all the way from the stairs, and drilled another hole on the wall, having a diameter of around 1-1.5 feet, through which one among them entered inside and decamped with the jewellery.
"We have called in advanced forensic teams and they will examine the safe. Only after that can we tell how much jewellery has been stolen exactly," the senior officer said.
Even though the robbers broke a few CCTV cameras, official sources told The New Indian Express that they have recovered footage from one of the cameras in which some of them can be seen.
The owner of the ill-fated Umrao Singh Jewelers, Sanjeev Jain, told mediapersons that they had closed the shop around 8 pm on Sunday and opened it after two days on Tuesday.
The police have constituted multiple teams to crack the case at the earliest. "We are questioning everybody connected to the shop," the official said.
Nearby shop owners told The New Indian Express that the burglars seemed to know about the showroom very well. "The way the burglary has taken place, the alleged persons must have done some recce before or knew about the shop," said one of them.