RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Feb.11: In an incident of broad day loot in the outskirts of the Jharkhand capital, three armed miscreants struck a jewellery shop and decamped with ornaments worth more than Rs 70 lakh besides Rs 40,000 cash and three mobile phones worth Rs 1.10 lakh.
The incident took place at Shanker and Son Jewellers at Mission Chowk, about 30km from the Jharkhand capital under Mandar police station area. The distance between the spot and the police station is hardly half a kilometre.
The CCTV footage collected from the shop suggests that it was a four-minute operation which started at 2.26pm. The CCTV footage shows two armed miscreants with their faces covered with helmets asking the shop owner Abhay Soni to handover all the ornaments and cash at gunpoint and Soni was noticed following the diktat out of fear.
A locality resident said out of three miscreants, two entered in the shop while one played a sentry sitting on a bike with its ignition on. “Miscreants looted the shop and zip zap zoomed,” the locality resident said.
Giving details of the looted items, the resident said: “Gold ornaments weighing at least one kg besides silver ornaments weighing 7kg was taken away by the miscreants. Apart from this, one mobile phone worth Rs 70,000 and two mobile phones each worth Rs 20,000 was taken away. While a mobile phone worth Rs 70,000 belonged to the shop owner Soni, two mobile phones of lesser prices belonged to two businessmen who had turned up at the shop for purchasing.”
The resident said: “The shop owner is inconsolable after the incident and not in a position to talk properly.”
Asked how old the shop was, the resident said: “Soni’s father had started the business more than 25 years ago in a small shop. Two years ago, this shop was inaugurated opposite the old shop as a branch.”
S.P(rural) Naushad Alam confirmed the incident saying ‘a special investigation team (SIT) has been constituted under the leadership of DSP Animesh Nathani and we hope that the early breakthrough will be made in the case.’
