8 kg gold stolen from City hotel

Four-member gang behind the theft

The jewellery belonged to the Delhi-based Derewalaha Jewellery Company and the precious metal went missing from room 217 (second floor) of the hotel where three employees — Praveen Agrawal, Vijay Sahani and Nitin — were staying, according to Ashok Nagar police.
The jewellery firm had brought their jewellery designs for display at the recently-concluded South India Jewellery Show-2010 at the Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium.

On Monday, around 6.30 pm, after closing the stalls, the three managers of the company came back to their rooms. Later, they went down to the cafeteria.

On returning, they were shocked to see the suitcase containing the jewels missing.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the theft had taken place between 7.10 pm and 7.50 pm and the accused had used a small crowbar to prise the door open.

Captured on CC TV

Police suspect that the gang might have followed them from the stadium and executed the heist when they were in the cafeteria. They had left the place in a high-end car. Interestingly, most of the criminal activity has been captured on the CCTV camera installed in the hotel.

Deccan Herald learnt that the company owner Pramod Agrawal had booked three rooms (217, 218 and 107) for its executives. Monday evening, P K Roy, the general manager of the firm, checked out and left for Delhi while the others stayed back in two of the rooms on the same floor.

It is still not clear how the culprits knew that the suitcase containing the precious item was kept in room 217. However, a few North Indian men in their early thirties were seen moving around suspiciously in the CCTV footages.

Meanwhile, police are not ruling out an inside job.