Painstaking analysis of lakhs of mobile phone calls enabled Hyderabad police crack a seemingly clueless robbery of nearly Rs. 40 lakh worth of diamonds and gold jewellery at Miyapur of Cyberabad.
The loot was recovered following the arrest of the seven-member gang which planned and executed the crime with clock-work precision and left not an iota of evidence behind, North Zone DCP R. Jayalakshmi told reporters on Wednesday.
The kingpins in the case – Ch. Mahender, M. Babu and Ch. Sreenivasu – turned out to be pearl and precious stone sellers. Through their acquaintances in the business, the trio learnt about a jeweller from Tamil Nadu, Balakrishna, who sells jewellery and precious stones to retailers in Andhra Pradesh.
As per the plan, a member of the gang rang him up a few days ago while he was in Karimnagar. Claiming himself to be a Hyderabad-based gold merchant, the caller lured Balakrishna to the city, stating that he would purchase all the jewellery from him at one go.
“Balakrishna had never met this person earlier but the caller gained his confidence by claiming that he collected his number through a trader in Secunderabad,” investigators said. As per the caller’s instructions, the jeweller arrived at an isolated space in Miyapur. Two persons hired by the gang came on a bike, hurled chilli powder on his face, beat him up and took away the bag of jewellery.
Mahankali police of Hyderabad had to register the case even when the robbery was committed in Miyapur of Cyberabad as the victim could not convince the Miyapur police about the crime since he was not fluent in Telugu, the DCP said.
Save the calls he had received from the offenders, Balakrishna had no other evidence.
These calls, investigators later learnt, originated from SIM cards obtained by presenting fake documents. A special team comprising Mahankali Detective Inspector A. Srinivasa Rao began analysing call data records of several persons dealing with jewellery and precious stones.
Using special software, they scrutinised nearly five lakh mobile phone calls before narrowing down on the trio, who was eventually caught along with Md. Anwar, P. Raju, Ch. Sreedhar and M. Shankar.
