Car driver, aides tie up employer's wife, steal Rs 46 lakh worth of jewels

Owner decorated the house with antiques but didn't instal a CCTV camera

Police have arrested a car driver who, alongside his three associates, sneaked into his employer’s Malleswaram home, tied up his wife, used pepper spray on her and then stole Rs 46 lakh worth of jewellery.

A Vinayaka, 22, the main suspect, worked as a personal driver for Sampath, a businessman who lives at Malleswaram 9th Cross. Seeing that his employer had kept plenty of cash and jewellery at home, Vinayaka plotted for three months alongside his three friends, Raghu V, Abhishek, both 22, and Lijesh, 19, to steal them. He managed to get a duplicate key of the house, police said.

On December 20, the gang sneaked into the house but was startled to find Sampath’s wife Nagalakshmi there.

The suspects quickly tied her up and used pepper spray on her. She passed out, and the gang made away with gold, platinum and silver ornaments kept in the cupboard. But just as they sneaked out of the house, they saw a Hoysala police patrol vehicle parked in the next block. They managed to hoodwink the police and flee the spot.

When Sampath came home, he found his wife lying on the floor. He untied her, went to the Malleswaram police station and made a complaint.

When the police inspected the house, they were certain that the burglars had used a duplicate key.

Suspecting that someone known to the family was behind the robbery, they kept a watch on Vinayaka who always accompanied Sampath. Based on suspicion, they picked him up for questioning. But Sampath refused to believe that he was involved.

The police, however, kept questioning Vinayaka who later confessed to the crime and tipped them off about his accomplices. He also helped the police recover the valuables.

Police found it perplexing that Sampath hadn’t cared to instal a CCTV camera in the house, though he had splurged on interior decoration using antiques. K S R Charan Reddy, Additional Commissioner of Police (West), said that people should instal surveillance cameras in their homes as that helped the police to detect such crimes.