Erode railway police have arrested six persons of Sholapur district, Maharashtra, in connection with the theft of 12.84 kg gold jewels on board Thiruvanandapuram-Chennai Express near Erode that took place some time back.
It is stated that Varadaram, Madan Singh and Jithender Singh, workers of a leading jewellery firm in Chennai, were travelling by the train from Coimbatore to Chennai on Sept 23 with a trolley bag containing jewels, which they were carrying with them after showing it to some customers at Coimbatore.
While they were asleep locking the trolley bags with the seat using a chain lock, some persons had made away with the bag using a cutting player while the train was nearing Erode. The workers, who woke up when the train was nearing Jolarpet, were shocked to find the bag with valuables missing and lodged a complaint with the Erode railway police.
Railway police IG R Arumugam said, “Since the theft involved a huge amount, 6 special teams were formed and one team, led by DSP K Rajavel, traced the culprits. The team’s inspectors camped for nearly one month in Mada, Barloni, Kuruduvadi, Lowl, Nimbore and Karmala villages in Sholapur district. The district is allegedly notorious for this kind of criminals. They then found a Scorpio car, which was suspected to have been used for the theft, in the house of a robbery gang headed by Yashwanth Jadav (24) of Nimbura in Karmala village. Cops who conducted a search found found the trolley bag and a cutting player similar to the one used for committing the theft in the train.
The police arrested Yashwanth and his accomplices Kaka Sahib (19), Rajaram Thikambar Thikkale (44), Samrao Thikambar Tikkale (54), Devrao Rama Kunjal (41) and Sivaraj Samrao Tikkale (23) and seized 3 vehicles, used for the theft, 208 grams of jewels and one trolley bag from them.
The thieves had sold the rest of the jewels some persons in their state and had purchased a land worth about Rs 1.25 crore. Efforts would be made to recover the sold jewels as well and to nab four others who were involved in the theft, the IG said.
Besides jewels, maps of different states and railway time tables with maps were also seized from them. They use these materials to track movement of jewellers.
The gang had come in 3 vehicles to TN to commit the heist. One of the vehicles had passed through the Hosur check post which had been confirmed through the footage of the camera installed at the check-post, he said.