JHARSUGUDA: Jharsuguda police, on Monday, arrested a jewellery shop owner and two of his employees for allegedly beating the sales manager of the shop to death on August 8 suspecting him of stealing jewellery worth Rs 60 lakh.
According to police, owner of ‘Odissy Jewellery World’ Navneet Sarawgi found jewellery worth Rs 60 lakh missing from the shop on August 8. Since sales manager Suresh Pandey, 33, of Manmunda of Boudh district, was in charge of the stocks in the shop, the owner conducted an internal inquiry and concluded that Suresh was the culprit. He alleged price tags of stolen jewellery items were recovered from Pandey’s bag in his house.
But instead of reporting the matter to the police, the owner and the employees thrashed Suresh severely and locked him up for two days. The owner also called his father and brother of Suresh and asked them to pay for the stolen jewellery. When they expressed their inability to pay, they were also reportedly beaten up.
On August 9, the owner handed over Suresh to the local police in a critically injured state. As his condition was critical, the police rushed Suresh to District Headquarters Hospital but he was shifted to VIMSAR Burla as his condition deteriorated. However, Suresh breathed his last on August 14.
Suresh’s mother had lodged a complaint with the police on August 9 based on which police started an inquiry.
Jharsuguda SDPO Nirmal Mohapatra said, during investigation, it was found that Suresh had stolen the jewellery at different times. The bank account of Suresh also revealed that he had taken a gold loan amounting to Rs 18 lakh from Muthoot Finance, Rs 22 lakh from Mannappuram Gold and Rs 3 lakh from IDBI Bank.
On Monday, town police arrested Navneet and two of his employees Meghnad Patel, 20, Mahendra Kisan, 25, on charges of murder. All were forwarded to court on Monday, where SDJM court rejected their bail pleas and sent them to judicial custody, informed the SDPO.