Engineer arrested for robbery

The Peenya police have arrested a City-based engineer who allegedly took to robbery to fund his betting on horse races.

According to police, Jayaram alias Arjun Singh, 38, was arrested from Mysore about eight days ago. As many as 10 two-wheelers, a car, 150 gm of gold ornaments and other valuables worth Rs nine lakh were recovered from him. 

Police said Jayaram had completed his engineering degree from a prominent college in the City and was working as an engineer. He was married to an architect. He was addicted to betting on horse races and soon started losing money. Jayaram took to robbery and vehicle-lifting to fund betting.

In 2009, he went to a house on the pretext of inviting the family for a wedding, but drugged a man with chloroform and held another girl at knifepoint, before making away with valuables. Police had been on the lookout for him since.

Five aides

He often operated with five accomplices, who were arrested by the police in various other cases and were released recently, said the police.

“During interrogation, they revealed that Jayaram was in Mysore. We gathered information about him and sent police teams to Mysore and asked them to keep an eye on horse races there as we suspected that he would come to bet. We succeeded in nabbing him after a tip-off. He had tried to alter his appearance by growing a beard and had changed his name to Arjun Singh to conceal identity,” said the police.

Valuables recovered

The Peenya police have arrested Rithesh, 22, a native of Tumkur, and recovered six bikes and a car from him. He used to steal vehicles by using duplicate keys.

In another case, the Yeshwantpur police arrested a woman and recovered 174 gm of gold and 450 gm of silver ornaments from her. The valuables are worth Rs 5.5 lakh. Lakshmi alias Gita, 56, used to divert attention of passengers in BMTC buses and make off with the gold chains and other valuables, said the police.