Hyderabad: 15 police teams hunt for jewellery shop robbers
HYDERABAD: The Rachakonada Commissionerate has formed 15 teams to hunt down the gang who shot at a jewellery shop owner and a worker at Nagole in the city, before fleeing with three kg gold on Thursday. Some of the teams have launched vehicle-checking on highways towards Pune and Karnataka. The fingerprints of the offenders are being matched with those of old criminals to see whether the robbery was the work of locals or of outsiders.
The two robbers shot at Kalyan Chowdary, the owner of Mahadev Jewellers and Sukram, who supplies gold ornaments from a godown in Secunderabad to several retailers in the city. The injured duo are undergoing treatment at Supraja Hospital. Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat who called on the injured at the hospital, said that teams were formed to nab the robbers. Sources told TNIE that it was yet to be established whether the robbery was an insider job. The police are looking at possible involvement of those known to Kalyan Chowdary and Sukram. Some police personnel say it is puzzling as to why the robbers actually fired their guns instead of waving their weapons as a threat at Kalyan and Sukram.
A police officer said: “In any robbery, offenders first threaten their target. If it doesn’t work, they open fire. But in this case, the miscreants right away resorted to shooting at the jewellery shop owner and the worker. This is a bit baffling and we have to look deeper into the case. Teams are working on other possible angles and the CCTV footage in the area is being checked to identify the robbers.”
Another source said that there were four robbers and two of them were wearing masks. The victims could not recognise the desperadoes while the latter barged into the shop, closed the shutters and started shooting. It is suspected that the accused had followed Sukram on their separate bikes from Secunderabad to Snehapuri Colony in Nagole.