A Bengaluru jeweller’s shop was raided last week by six men in khaki, who made away with gold from his outlet. The police have now learned that among the six men posing as police, two of them were in fact attached to the Halasuru Gate Police Station, while the rest were impersonators. Halasuru Gate police constable Ashoka (29) was arrested on Sunday, while his colleague, Chowdegowda, is absconding. The police also arrested Mohammed Sheikh (34), Jeetu Adak, Sooraj Yadav (25), Syed Fairoz (33), Nadeem Pasha (32) and Sandeep (25), who had impersonated police officers.
On November 15, a gang of six men wearing police uniforms got out of a car and entered Karthik’s workshop in Tigalarapet. The Halasuru Gate Police said that the men told the workers at Karthik’s shop that he was operating illegally and made them leave the shop. The six men allegedly asked Karthik to produce his trade licence, whilst knowing that he did not have one. They raided his shop and took away 825 gms of gold on the pretext of seizing it as evidence.
Karthik filed a complaint with the police the same evening. The CCTV footage procured from shops in the same road helped the investigators track down the license plate number of the car in which the six men had arrived. The car was sold six times in the past and currently belonged to Mohammed Sheikh. He was arrested from Annasandrapalya on Sunday morning. His arrest led to the information that two of the six people who stole the gold from Karthik were police constables.
Police said that Jeetu Adak and his son Sooraj were also goldsmiths, who ran a jewellery shop in the same building as Karthik. The father owned the building and had rented a portion of it to Karthik. However, they were allegedly jealous of Karthik’s booming business. Jeetu Adak allegedly approached Nadeem Pasha and asked him to help him with a plan to flounce Karthik. Knowing that Karthik was running his business without a trade license, Nadeem Pasha suggested that they rope in two police constables and steal jewellery by posing as policemen.
So far, seven people have been arrested and one of the police constables is absconding. The Halasuru Gate Police said that the eight men sold the gold for Rs 30 lakh and split it among themselves. Further investigation is ongoing.