Five from Kolhapur arrested for robbing gold transporters

The CCB sleuths have arrested five persons from Kolhapur on charges of robbing four kg gold ingots from two persons in Madiwala on November 6. Valuables worth Rs 1.76 crore, including gold ingots, an excavator and cash were recovered from the arrested.

According to the police, the arrested are Sarfaroz Khan, Ramjij Chaus, Javeed Harun Sheik, Shalal Mohammad Makandar, all natives of Kolhapur and Praveen, a native of Sangli in Maharashtra. Another accused Santhosh Kalkutigi, also a native of Sangli, is absconding.

The police have recovered 4 kg gold ingots worth of Rs 1.4 crore, an excavator worth of Rs 30 lakh, Rs 42 lakh cash from Sarfaroz Khan’s residence and Rs 45,000 cash from Makandar’s residence.

The victims, Anand and Mahesh, residents of Talacherry in Kerala, were working in a gold bullion shop there. They were also working as carriers for a businessmen Manik Kadam and Vikas Kadam, who were into gold business. The duo used to frequent the City to buy gold ingots and would take it back for business purpose, said police.

On November 6, the victims bought 4 kg gold ingots from gold shops situated in Nagarathpet. After the purchase, at 10 pm, they went to Kalasipalya and boarded a bus. The accused Khan and Makandar too boarded the same bus and sat behind the victims, police said. The ticket collector asked the suspects for the tickets, but they told him that they would buy the ticket near Madiwala as three other friends will be joining them.
As soon as the bus reached Madiwala, both the accused posing as Income Tax (IT) officials, flaunted their fake identity cards and asked the victims to get down from the bus. As they got down, Khan and Makandar were joined by other accused Santosh, Chaus and Sheik, who posed as senior IT officials.

They ‘arrested’ the victims, stating that they were carrying gold illegally and would be taking them for completion of official proceedings, police said.

The accused took the victims near Woody’s Hotel in JP Nagar and snatched the gold ingots, Rs 2,000 cash and a mobile phone. The victims tried to resist, but they were overpowered. The accused asked the victims to come with their owners to the police station the next day to collect the valuables and fled the spot. The victims immediately went to Madiwala police station and registered a complaint, which was transferred to CCB.

The CCB police examined the CCTV footage collected from the bus stops in Kalasipalya and Madiwala and traced the movement of the accused. The description of the accused, given by the victims, were found to be similar with those in the footage.

After receiving information from sources and while cross-checking with various toll plazas, they got to know that the suspects had travelled in a vehicle bearing a Maharashtra registration number on the same night. They traced the accused to Kolhapur and arrested five of them, while Santosh is absconding, police said.

During the interrogation, they revealed that Praveen, who works as a carrier for another businessman, hatched a criminal conspiracy to loot the victims and executed the plan. The police are investigating if the accused were involved in more cases.
DH News Service