Jewellery shops in the city remained closed for few hours on Friday as traders resorted to a road blockade on the Jawaharlal Nehru Street after a police team reportedly from Tambaram in Chennai picked up a jeweller for interrogation.
Police sources said Bala alias Balakrishnan (55) who runs a jewellery shop at Nellumandi Street in the city was picked up by a team of Tambaram police officers at around 9.00 p.m. on Thursday and taken to Chennai for interrogation in connection with a case.
However, the team had not alerted the local police about the incident.
On learning about the incident jewellers and traders resorted to a flash strike and blocked the Jawaharlal Nehru Street for over an hour in the morning seeking security and adequate protection to traders in the wake of repeated occurrences of ‘arrest’ of jewellers and pawnbrokers in Puducherry.
Puducherry Traders Federation president M. Sivasankaran, who led the protest, said that the jeweller Balakrishnan was taken into custody by the Tambaram police allegedly without the knowledge of the local police.
He said that this was not the first instance as only a fortnight ago a jeweller lost 640 gm of jewellery worth Rs. 18 lakh to a gang of persons posing as policemen. He said that traders suffered mental torture and lack of security to run their business due to such incidents.
On information police personnel from the Grand Bazaar police station rushed to the spot and pacified the traders following which they withdrew their protest.
A senior police official said that the jeweller Balakrishnan returned to Puducherry after the interrogation in Chennai.
