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Another 'costly' crime
 A
few days ago, a night burglary had occurred at a jewellery shop in Chennai in
the Pondy Bazaar police station limits, in which Rs 20 lakh worth jewels and
silver articles were reported to have been stolen. Sometimes, owners themselves
would file a false complaint by stage-managing the case as a burglary in order
to make bogus claims from the insurance companies.
Therefore, at first, the police
suspected this to be a case of foul play due to the following reasons:
-
Some
of the costly jewellery were not stolen and remained untouched;
-
Several kilos of silver
items were also reported to have been burgled. Suspicion had arisen as to why
the silver items had been taken away without removing the costly jewellery
items.
However, the modus operandi
confirmed the involvement of professional criminals in this crime. As the
jewellery shop would have a powerful locking system, the criminals in this case
chose to break open a neighbouring gold covering shop and after having entered
the shop, dug a hole in the wall, and through the hole managed to enter this
shop and loot the jewellery.
A notable feature in this case
was that the owner of the jewellery shop while returning to his house after
finishing his private work at 2 a.m., had noticed a stranger sitting in front of
his shop. Suspicious, he interrogated the stranger without knowing that his
associates were operating inside the jewellery shop at that point of time. When
the stranger replied that he was sleeping in front of the shop, the owner was
convinced and went away. It was only the next morning, when he noticed the
burglary in his shop, did he realise the folly and his failure to nab the
criminals. The owner of the shop had informed the police that the stranger whom
he met during the night spoke Hindi with a South Indian accent.
 The criminals had also left
behind a newspaper at the scene of the crime. The paper was used by the
criminals to cover the implements which were brought by them to break open into
the shops. It was a Hindi newspaper of Bangalore edition and hence the police
naturally suspect the handiwork of some North Indian criminals who had
connections at Bangalore. The criminals have not yet been apprehended.
However, this is not the first
time that a major burglary, involving several lakhs of rupees, had occurred in a
leading jewellery shop in Chennai. A few years ago, a similar burglary in the
same style, had occurred in Anand jewellery shop near Panagal Park in Chennai in
the same jurisdiction of Pondy Bazaar limits. The criminals had adopted this
very modus operandi of making a hole in the wall to make an entry. Nearly Rs 30
to 40 lakh worth jewellery were stolen in that case. Almost a decade ago, in the
Pondy Bazaar police limits, nearly Rs 40 lakh worth jewellery were looted from
another leading jewellery shop, using the same technique.
In 1992, Rs 40 lakh worth
jewellery from Asian jewellery in Flower Bazaar and during 1993, Rs 1 crore
worth jewellery from Vummidiar Jewellery shop in Flower Bazaar were successfully
looted by the criminals. In all these cases the criminals have not yet been
nabbed by the police.
Police
attribute the reason for the non-detection of these cases to the fact that all
these crimes were not committed by the local criminals and that they were the
handiwork of the criminals from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Whatever be the reason, for the past one decade the criminals had successfully
looted several crores of jewellery, while easily evading detection and capture
by the police.
With these looted jewelleries,
it could well be possible that they may be running a leading jewellery shop in
any one of the states in India.
The rich are seldom punished
for their wrong doings for obvious reasons. This analogy may also be applicable
to such crimes too, as these crimes have taken place without detection and the
criminals continue to escape punishment.
Harvey
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