Cracking a jewellery shop loot incident in Basta area, which occurred 40 days back, the local police arrested three miscreants and forwarded them to court.
The accused were identified as Debendra Das (mastermind) of Manudiha under Basta police station limits, Tirumalla Patra and G Balaraju Acharya of Aska in Ganjam district.
Police recovered about 400 gm of gold ornaments from their possession. The miscreants had committed the armed loot on October 16.
During investigation, first Das was arrested and by interrogating him, the police lay their hands on the
other two.
According to police, Patra and Acharya from Aska area own a jewellery shop for name’s sake. Their primary focus is either they commit loot or receive jewellery from thieves. In the case, two others of Kodala area, Kunal Barik of Kabisurya Nagar and Ranjan Mahalik of Khantapara were at large.
Briefing mediapersons, Basta SDPO Jalandhar Jali and IIC Dhaneswar Sahu on Tuesday said that all the accused persons had criminal background and arrested earlier in similar crime.
According to sources , on October 16 Mrutunjay Giri of Taharpur under Rupsa police station, while returning his home after closing his jewellery shop at Nalbaharon, was intercepted en route by three masked persons, threatening him at gunpoint. They took him to a secluded place and kept him a hostage till market became thin. When all the shops closed , after about three hours, they took Giri to his shop and lifted all the jewelleries. Before leaving, they took the CC Tv and recorder too from the shop. The loot articles included about 500 gm gold and 10 kg silver. They also snatched a chain and rings Giri was wearing.
Giri later had lodged an FIR with police.