Tripura, October 07: The police have recovered 1,381 sovereigns of gold jewellery stolen from Muthoot Mini Finance Private Limited here, exactly 11 days after the heist.
The district police have arrested six persons from whom they recovered the jewellery. They also recovered Rs.45,000 out of the Rs.2.5 lakh stolen by the gang on September 24. Three others, including T. Venkatesan, mastermind of the robbery and former employee of the firm, are yet to be nabbed.
The arrested are Sheik Abdullah (28), N. Gunasekaran (38), D. Karthik (27) (all from Erode), D. Suresh alias Sumangali Pandian (27), G. Kumar (28) and S. Manikantan (29) (all three from Tirunelveli).
Sheik Abdullah, a draughtsman, and the others were self-employed. Gunasekaran’s wife is Venkatesan’s sister and employee of another branch of Muthoot.
Inspector General of Police (West Zone) K. Vanniaperumal said that Venkatesan and Manikantan studied together in Pudukottai. Venkatesan persuaded Manikantan to join him in the robbery bid and then recruited others for the operation.
He said the accused had confessed that Venkatesan opened the locker as he was familiar with its operation.
Sources in the finance firm told The Hindu that Venkatesan joined the company on May 1 and was trained at one of the branches in Tirupur before being asked to assume charge as assistant manager at the Sankagiri branch. He, however, left the job without reporting at the branch.
The accused chose the particular branch after they observed that it neither had any security personnel nor closed-circuit television cameras.
Superintendent of Police V. Balakrishnan said that before committing the crime the accused had visited the branch six times to study the place.
The police made the first progress following the recovery of the cell phone that the accused took away from one of the employees during the robbery.
It was found near a pond at Kollampalayam in Erode district.
The interrogation of people in the locality led the police to the hideout of the accused.
Venkatesan was said to be operating a godown in that area but escaped before police reached there.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (Tirupur) R. Rajaram, who was the key person in the investigation, was among the officials who were rewarded by Mr. Vanniaperumal for solving the case quickly.