Rs 20 cr Delhi heist solved, police arrest 2, recover 18.5 kg of jewels

The Chhattisgarh police have arrested two persons and recovered around 18.5 kg of gold and diamond ornaments in connection with a burglary of jewellery worth over Rs 20 crore from a store in New Delhi earlier this week, a senior official said on Friday.

A joint team of anti-crime and cyber unit and civil line police station in Bilaspur district carried out the operation while it was probing a series of thefts in Bilaspur city, Superintendent of Police (SP) Santosh Singh told PTI.

The arrested persons have been identified as Lokesh Srivas and Shiva Chandravanshi, he said.

Srivas was allegedly involved in seven thefts in Bilaspur, he said.

Acting on a tip-off about the presence of Srivas in Kawardha town in Kabirdham district of the state, the joint team of Bilaspur police conducted a raid there on Wednesday and arrested Chandravanshi along with ornaments worth Rs 23 lakh, he said. By that time, Srivas had managed to escape, the SP said.

The team then tracked down Srivas to a house in Smritinagar police station area of Durg district with the help of the Durg police, he said.

The police recovered Rs 18.5 kg of gold and diamond jewellery and Rs 12.5 lakh cash from his possession, Singh said.

An investigation revealed that the jewellery worth crores of rupees was stolen from a store in New Delhi, he said.

A team of Delhi police has also arrived in Chhattisgarh and further investigation into the matter is underway, he added.

Earlier, officials had said that two men had been detained in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur in connection with a Rs 20-crore burglary from a jewellery shop in Delhi's Bhogal area and their interrogation was underway.

At least three people were involved in the burglary, one of the biggest in the national capital, according to the Delhi police.

The criminals broke into the shop, made a hole in a strong room and decamped with ornaments worth more than Rs 20 crore as well as Rs 5 lakh in cash earlier this week.

The shop, Umrao Singh Jewellers, in south Delhi's Bhogal, had several CCTV cameras but they were damaged around Sunday midnight, the police said.

The owner closed the shop on Sunday around 8 pm and when he opened it on Tuesday around 10.30 am, he got to know about the incident. The shop remains closed on Monday.