Suspense continues over 11 kilos of missing silver worth Rs five lakh

The officers investigating into the crime are probing the call details of the mobile phone used by the driver and other suspects involved in the case before and after the incident had occurred

July 28, 2012 12:04 pm | Updated 12:04 pm IST

Last week, the city police were shocked after a young man rushed to them with a complaint that 11 kilos of silver was missing from the car and that the driver suffered head injuries.

The robbers, who were tall, black and looked like foreigners, had attacked the driver Kamalakannan (19) with a liquor bottle and decamped with the booty. The tale, as told to the police officers by the driver, goes like, driver Kamalakannan, from Perambur Chennai had come with a young jeweller who was participating in the three-day jewellery show at the PTR Kalyana Mandapam. The taxi was hired just a day prior to arrival here. As preliminary inquiries revealed that the jeweller had no information or knowledge about the driver, a team rushed to Chennai to gather details about him.

On the second day night, when the jeweller was about to leave from the mandapam to the hotel, he was staying near district court, he had kept a bag containing silver items and went back to the dining hall to have his dinner. In the meantime, the driver is said to have gone to a petrol bunk to check the tyre pressure, where two persons intercepted and attacked him and fled with the booty after abandoning the SUV near Ponnagaram area.

The Commissioner of Police Sanjay Mathur has formed a special team to probe into the case, police said.

Missing link

The officers investigating into the crime are probing the call details of the mobile phone used by the driver and other suspects involved in the case before and after the incident had occurred. “It looks like a planned robbery, but the suspects are trying to give an impression as if they are all innocent…”an officer said. Assuming that the driver is innocent, the question revolves is that why, “the bag containing silver item was kept in the vehicle, especially, when the jeweller had no idea about the driver’s background. Another observation by the officers was that the condition of the vehicle’s tyres looked far from satisfaction. Normally, the driver should have cautioned about the poor condition of the tyre and changed it prior to departure. The explanation of the driver that he went to a petrol bunk to check the tyre pressure is still not convincing. Moreover, it is strongly suspected that some local gang, which had ‘good’ information about the visitors to the jewellery show may have committed and escaped with the booty with the aid of foreigners’ whose finger print or other data may not be available with the police records.

The kalyana mandapam which has surveillance camera covering the hall could have installed a couple of cameras more capturing the outer view of the campus. This would have given a vital clue in nearing the criminals swiftly, the investigators observed.

So far, the police had examined close to 50 persons in the city and in Chennai in connection with this crime. Though there is no clue as of now, the senior officers are confident of detecting it soon. After all, the city police had just solved a complex murder for gain crime in which a woman and her little son were found dead nine months ago. The special team had successfully nabbed the murderers only a fortnight ago. “Wait for some more time” is the message from the cops.

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