The city police on Thursday caught a grocery store owner for his alleged involvement in 12 attention diversion cases.
The arrested person, Bhagath Manoj Kumar of Ziaguda, duped people promising to help them polish their gold ornaments. He committed the crime with the help of 11 of his associates -- Pankaj, Sachin Kumar, Deepak Kumar, Ameeth Kumar, Rakesh Shah, Ramachander Shah, Umesh, Nirdhosh Kumar, Niranjan, Rajesh and Vasudev Pandit.
The 11 accused hailing from Bihar were absconding, the police said. They formed two gangs and targeted women approaching them as salespersons of a detergent company. They claimed that their product would be useful to polish ornaments.
Believing their claims, a few gullible women gave their ornaments for polishing. The gang then used to place the jewellery in a bowl containing water and chemical. They would close the lid and ask the women to open it after 10 minutes and leave. When the women opened the lid, the ornaments were missing, the police said.
This way the gang duped three women at Chikkadpally, Musheerabad and Gandhinagar and made away with 20 tolas of gold ornaments worth over Rs.6 lakh.
