Mumbai: The police have cracked the Agripada jewellery stickup where two armed men robbed a shop of gold ornaments worth Rs 1.9 crore on Sunday afternoon. The crime branch arrested Vinod Pal (29), while Agripada police nabbed his accomplice, Santosh Bulakia (26). Part of the stolen loot has been recovered, with efforts ongoing to retrieve the remainder.
The incident occurred at Rishabh Jewellers near Saat Rasta, where the duo, armed with a gun, tied up jeweller Bhavarlal Jain and his employees before assaulting them. They looted gold and silver ornaments weighing 2,458 grams, valued at Rs 1.9 crore. Adding to their audacity, the robbers mistook the shop’s Wi-Fi router for a DVR and stole it, unaware that CCTV footage had already captured the entire crime. “Our investigations revealed that the robbers had conducted a recce an hour prior under the pretext of buying a gold ring,” said an officer. Following the robbery, the accused split the stolen ornaments and went their separate ways.
A special task force comprising Agripada police and the crime branch examined over 150 CCTV cameras and coordinated with police teams in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to trace the suspects. Pal was particularly elusive; he used multiple transport modes to mislead cops on his trail. He went from Mumbai to Thane by taxi, switched to a rickshaw to Bhiwandi, then used a shared taxi to Nashik, followed by a private vehicle to Bhusawal. Finally, he boarded a train to Bhopal. Police discovered Pal hiding in a nearby village under a pile of fodder. Agripada police arrested Bulakia in a simultaneous operation.
