Bengaluru: Posing as BIS officers, robbers flee with Rs 85 lakh jewellery, arrested

Bengaluru: The KR Puram police arrested four people who impersonated officials from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and fled with gold ornaments valued at Rs 85 lakh from a jeweller, police said on Monday.

The suspects — Sampath Kumar, 55, from Aluva, and Joshi R Thomas, 54, from Thrissur, both from Kerala; and Sandeep Sharma, 48, and Avinash Kumar, 27, from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh — posed as BIS officials and entered Mahalakshmi Jewellers in RMS Colony around 1 pm on Saturday.

They told the shop owner that they were conducting hallmark inspections on gold ornaments, claiming to have already inspected other stores.

A police officer said the quartet proceeded to segregate, weigh, and seal the gold ornaments in front of the shop owner. “They had a letterhead and fake identification cards,” the officer said. “They told the shop owner to visit them at their Chennai office with the required documents in order to get the ornaments released.”

Faulty escape plan

While leaving, the four confiscated the CCTV Digital Video Recorder (DVR), raising suspicions among an employee. “He chased them as they fled in a Toyota Innova,” the officer said. “The suspects attempted to run him over when he got ahead of their car and asked them to stop. He moved away, but the four men reached a dead-end near TC Palya.”

Realising their escape plan had failed, the suspects entered a house, falsely claiming they were involved in an accident and sought assistance.

The employee informed the KR Puram police, who promptly arrested the four and searched for the fifth suspect, Ravi, who is absocnding. Police recovered gold weighing 1.248 kg, valued at an estimated Rs 85 lakh.

The four men were charged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 395 (punishment for dacoity), 463 (forgery), 307 (attempt to murder), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).