'Trusted' neighbours held for burgling jeweller's house

Police have arrested two men on the charge of burgling the house of a jeweller whom they had befriended as neighbours.

Suresh, 24, a cab driver, and Siddaraju, 23, an auto driver, are the suspects and resident of Srinagar.

Police said the two men had got into the house of Ratan, 40, a gold jeweller from 14th Main, Hanumanthnagar, using a duplicate key, and made off with one kg of gold jewellery, 115 gm of silver articles, an uncut diamond and Rs 10,900 in cash. The total worth of the valuables is Rs 35 lakh, police said.

The suspects had befriended Ratan as they stayed nearby. They soon became close and the duo began frequenting his home. A gullible Ratan, who lived alone, apparently trusted them, police added.

The duo somehow learnt that Ratan kept gold and silver jewellery in the house. Then they allegedly plotted to burgle his house. On the afternoon of March 23, they went to his home on the “pretext” of watching cricket on television.

While watching the match, the suspects sneaked out the key of Ratan’s house.
They excused themselves, telling Ratan that they had some “urgent” work and would return soon.

Then they went to a key maker in Magadi Road and got a duplicate key made. Thereafter, they came back to Ratan’s house and kept the original key in its place, police explained.
Police further said the suspects then waited for the “right time” to strike. On March 29, Ratan left his house as per routine. The suspects saw him leaving and after some time entered the house, using the duplicate key, and made off with the valuables.

While they sold off some of the jewellery to a pawnbroker, they wrapped the rest in a tower and left it with a scrap dealer near Veerabhadra Nagar, off Outer Ring Road, for safekeeping. They told the shopkeeper the bag contained some “important documents”, police added.

Thereafter, they went to Ratan’s house and he told them about the theft. They “feigned shock” at the incident, police said, and consoled him.

They later accompanied him to the police station and helped him make a complaint.
After swinging into action, police learnt that the suspects frequented Ratan’s house and that Suresh had been accused of theft previously. As investigators questioned them, the suspects confessed to the crime, police said.

BBMP engineer killed

A junior civil engineer with the BBMP was killed when an unidentified vehicle rear-ended his motorcycle near the Windsor Manor bridge on Wednesday night, police said.

Kiran Kumar, 32, a resident of Kumara Park who worked as junior civil engineer in Sanjayagar ward, was returning from work around 11 pm when an unidentified vehicle struck his motorcycle from behind near the Windsor Manor bridge.

The collision was so severe that Kumar was flung in the air, and crashed to the ground with grievous head injuries. Passersby took him to a hospital but he was declared brought dead.

Police are examining the footage of the traffic CCTV camera to determine the registration number of the vehicle which caused the accident, and trace its driver.