4 held in 77L silver, artificial jewellery theft

Pune: Pimpri Chinchwad crime branch have arrested five suspects within a week of the theft of silver and imitation jewellery worth Rs77.22 lakh from a jewellery showroom at Chakan on April 23.A crime branch team led by inspector Santosh Kasbe checked CCTV footage on the 550km route from Chakan to Gujarat and nabbed the suspects. The police recovered stolen jewellery worth Rs27 lakh and a car used by the accused to escape from the crime scene.The arrested accused are from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Search is on for their accomplices, who are on the run with the remaining stolen jewellery, an officer from the crime branch said.In the early hours of April 23, unknown men entered a jewellery shop at Chakan by cutting the locks with a gas cutter and made off with imitation and silver jewellery worth Rs 77.20 lakh. The Pimpri Chinchwad crime branch checked the CCTV footage and noticed a suspicious car driving away towards Nashik from the crime scene. "Our team followed the car's route through CCTV footage. We checked the footage on the 550 km stretch till Ahmedabad in Gujarat and made the arrests," an officer from the crime branch said.He said that the police arrested Himmatkumar Salvi, 37, from Ahmedabad and arrested Mukesh Salvi, 24, Radheshyam Salvi, 22, and Pukhraj Lohar, 21, all from Bhilwara in Rajasthan. "During the questioning, the accused admitted to having stolen the jewellery from the Chakan shop with the help of two more accomplices," he said.The officer said that the accused also revealed the name of an employee in the jewellery shop, who had given them a tip about the booty and also gave them a key to the shutter at the back side of the shop. The gang opened the shutter and cut the locks by using the gas cutter. "We have recovered some of the stolen jewellery from the gang. We have launched a search for their two accomplices, who are from Rajasthan," the officer said.