Police arrested six persons on Thursday in connection with a dacoity committed in one of busiest localities in city.
R. Sudhakar alias Srinivasan (32), R. Maran (31), V Durgaprasath (26), P. Mari alias Marimuthu (30), G. Nithyanandham (33) and A. Kangeyan (53), are the accused in the case. The police also recovered stolen gold and silver coins worth about Rs. 2.5 lakh and seized a Ford Fiesta Car, knives and mobile phones used by the offenders.
According to the police, Abijith Begaji Karge (27), of Kamatchiamman Koil street, had been running a gold melting, polishing and testing shop on Bharathi Street here for the past 15 years.
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On June 28 at the closing hours , three unknown persons entered his shop, posing themselves as policemen, threatened his brother Avinash and relative Kailash to give all the gold items.
When they refused, the gang pointed knives at them threateningly and robbed them of 70 kg of gold ingot, about half kilo of silver items and Rs.8,000.
A special team constituted after the victims lodged a complaint, had a thorough study of the CCTV footages of Bharathi Street and nearby streets and managed to develop a likely profile of suspects.
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Soon, the team nabbed Durgaprasad, a driver of Christ College, and on interrogation, he disclosed that Sudhagar of Kadhirkamam working as an appraiser at an urban bank branch and working as gold tester at his friend's shop on Bharathi Street, masterminded the dacoity.
Sudhagar was facing lot of problems due to debt and had plotted the armed robbery to get out of his woes. He had targeted this particular shop as it was a leading jewellery retailer, police said.