Three days after a dacoity gang, posing themselves as Income Tax Department officials, looted gold worth Rs 60 lakh from a jewellery manufacturer in Secunderabad in a film-like operation, the Hyderabad police Tuesday nabbed four of the suspects.
The robbery was a real-life recreation of the 2013 Bollywood film Special 26, starring Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher and Manoj Bajpayee. Police Commissioner C V Anand Tuesday said about 573 grams of gold were recovered, and they were looking for five other suspects.
At around 10 am on Sunday, May 27, a shop in Pot Market was suddenly raided by five people claiming to be I-T officials. Later, the manager of the shop complained to the police that the five suspects showed ID cards, forcibly took away the workers’ mobile phones and threatened them. He said the group took away 17 gold coins, each weighing about 100 grams, and that the total worth of the lost gold would be around Rs 60 lakh.
During the probe, the police found that one of the robbers, who posed as an I-T official, worked in the same market in Secunderabad. The workers were all confined in a room by the group who latched the door from outside before fleeing the scene. While five of the suspects went inside the shop, the rest stood guard outside. The entire operation lasted at most 20 minutes.
Zakir Ghani Athar, 35, has been working at one of the gold melting shops in the market, which collected old gold ornaments from the customers and worked with Siddi Vinayaka gold shop, the place they raided, to melt and manufacture new gold biscuits. Anand said Zakir, his cousin Rahman Gafoor Athar, and eight other friends hatched a plan to rob the shop. Besides Zakir and Rahman, the police arrested Praveen Yadav, 32, and Akash Arun Hovil, 31.
After their adventure, the gang split into two and parted ways. One moved back to Sangli in Maharashtra, and the others left for Goa. The four arrested persons hail from Maharashtra.
According to the police, the accused reached Hyderabad from parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra on May 24 as per their plan and stayed in a lodge in Secunderabad. On the same day, Zakir explained the plan and conducted a recce of the location with others. They hit the shop at a time when everyone was busy at the workshop, the police said.
The Market police registered a case under sections 395 (dacoity) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
