The city police on Thursday cracked a major jewellery shop dacoity in Electronics City in a matter of 72 hours, and arrested a group of robbers from Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, after a filmi chase and facing bullets from the gang.
Two people, in the guise of customers, entered Ramdev Jewellers, Mylasandra, on July 4 morning, when an employee had opened the shop. They threatened him with a pistol, took him to the safe locker, and tied him up.
Soon, two more entered the store, and they made away with ₹1.58 crore worth of gold ornaments. The thieves also took away the phone of the employee, and the digital video recorder of the CCTV cameras, leaving no immediate lead from the scene of the crime.
Using mobile tower location data, the police traced the gang to Rajasthan. After reaching the state, with the help of the police there, the team from Bengaluru tracked down the gang in Chittorgarh district. When they went to arrest the robbers, the latter began shooting at the police vehicle, and fled from the scene.
The police said after a filmi chase over 3 km, four members of the gang were arrested. A fifth member had taken his share of the bounty and is at large, the police said.
Most of the stolen jewellery, and two pistols and three bullets have been recovered. All four, who have been arrested, have several pending cases of house burglary, robbery, and dacoity in Rajasthan and Bengaluru, the police said. The prime accused had been running a hardware shop in Hulimavu in Bengaluru.