KOCHI: The major heist at Aiswarya Jewellers in Eloor, in which burglars reportedly decamped with 3 kg of gold and 25 kg of silver on Sunday night, has put the police in a tight spot as the operation seemed to have been executed to perfection. Consequently, there are hardly any clues for investigators to follow up. Officers believe only people familiar with the region, most likely a group of local guys, alone could have pulled off the job.
Other than its owner P R Vijayakumar, the jewellery shop hasn’t had an employee in the last 15 years. Further confounding the police, no suspicious sightings of strangers have been reported from the region in recent times. Also, the fact that the jewellery’s CCTV cameras had been dysfunctional for a while makes its all the more difficult for the police to zero in on the identity of the culprit/culprits.
“No suspicious looking persons had visited the shop. I used to open the shop at 9am. While closing the shop, all the ornaments are shifted to the locker,” said Vijayakumar. His brother, Babu runs a fancy store nearby.
According to Vijayakumar, “The owner of another shop functioning in the building called me up around 7.30am on Monday and asked me to reach there immediately. He had spotted the gaping hole on the wall of the adjoining hair salon through which the burglars got in”.
The hair salon and jewellery shop function from a single room. The burglars entered the hair salon by drilling the rear wall and then razed down the partition. The land behind the shopping complex is infested with reptiles and none ventures out there, local people said.
“The salon has been functioning in the building for several years and now it is run by Bhoopathi hailing from Tamil Nadu,” said Babu. Vijayakumar said the nearby shop owners, including Bhoopathi, are extremely supportive.
The police are examining CCTV footage from nearby shops and areas to establish the identity of the culprits. An investigation is also under way to find out whether the whole story had been made up to get the insurance amount, a source said. We are looking at all angles,” said M Manoj, Inspector, Eloor police.