The Kodigehalli police have cracked the attempted armed robbery of Lakshmi Jewellery in Devi Nagar and arrested four members of the gang with the help of the local police as soon as they reached Gwalior railway station in Madhya Pradesh.
One of the accused, identified as Suraj, 30, said to be the prime accused in the case, succumbed to gunshot injuries in the neck during the scuffle with the owner and an employee of the shop. The police said he had travelled back to his hometown in the same condition and was admitted to a government hospital by the police after arrest, where he succumbed the next day.
Appreciating the good piece of investigation, Police Commissioner B. Dayananda announced a cash reward of ₹1 lakh to the police team as well their Gwalior counterparts.
The accused, according to B.M. Laxmi Prasad, DCP, northeast division, are inter-State habitual offenders involved in over a dozen criminal cases. The gang is suspected to have come to the city a few days ago and did a recce before zeroing in on jewellery shop.
The accused stayed in the house of one of the accused in Bidarahalli, who has been in the city for many days working as a labourer.
The accused, as per the plan, stole two bikes on the same day and, armed with the weapons, attacked the shop around 11:20 a.m.
The owner of the shop and his relative, working as an employee at the shop, resisted the robbery. In the melee, the accused opened fire, and in the scuffle, the accused, Suraj, sustained gunshot injuries on his neck, while the owner of the shop and his employee also sustained gun shot injuries on the stomach and legs.
As the alarm in the shop was triggered, the accused sped away on the motorcycle while dropping a country-made weapon.
The police, who reached the spot, cordoned off the area, conducted a detailed investigation and recovered a fingerprint mark at the scene of the crime.
They began to check with the national fingerprint data portal and found the details of the accused, while the other team obtained a lead from an eye witness who chased the accused fleeing on two bikes till Gorguntepalya.
Following the leads, the police team found that the accused had boarded a train along with injured Suraj from Ananthpura to go to Gwalior.
The police team reached Gwalior before the train reached and with the help of local police arrested the accused soon after they got down from the train.
The police said Suraj rode the bike for 1,200 kilometres and did not eat and drink for two and half days till he reached Gwalior. However, he had developed complication in the wound and succumbed at the hospital.
The three accused have been produced before the court and taken into 13 days of custody for questioning, while the police are searching for the fifth accused who had provided logistic support in the city and is on the run.
The police have seized three country-made pistols, 12 rounds of ammunition, two bikes and two mobile phones from them. The investigation will be on to ascertain whether they were part of similar robberies in and around the city earlier.
