The police have arrested eight persons from Madhya Pradesh, who were allegedly involved in four cases of theft in jewellery shops in the district occurred between August and October.
The police gave the names of the accused as Amar Singh (28), Sardar (20), Madan (32), Buhulia (50), Vijay Kumar Soni, Mudiya Bhuriya (40), Ushan Bilal (38) and Mohan Singh (30). The accused, who are from a tribal community from Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh, were selling stolen articles to Vijay Kumar Soni from Ali Rajpur district in that State. While the first five were arrested on December 1, the rest were nabbed two months ago.
Superintendent of Police Abhishek Goyal told presspersons here on Friday that the accused hired vehicles to commit theft. After committing theft, they returned to Madhya Pradesh and sold the stolen articles to Soni. The arrest of Madiya Buria, Ushan Bilal and Mohan Singh two months ago revealed the existence of a wider network.
On a tip off, the Punjalkatte police waylaid the vehicle in which four accused were travelling at Sonandur. They were on the way to commit theft after meeting members of their gang lodged in the jail in Hassan. Mr. Goyal said the faces of the accused matched with the images of the closed circuit TV cameras at the four jewellery shops burgled by them, he said. Mr. Goyal said a police team went to Dhar and arrested Soni. They recovered from him 13.5 kg of silver articles.