Alert public and cops thwart burglars

Alert public and the police thwarted a gang of four who were tunnelling their way into a jewellery store on Kanakapura Road in the wee hours of Friday. The gang was just a few feet short of breaking into the store. Police chased and arrested three suspects — Kabir (29), Hussein (25) and Salim (30). The fourth suspect is Ismail (32). A probe revealed that they are from Bangladesh and had come to the city two weeks ago. The hero of the story Ramesh, in his late forties, was standing near a street corner around 2.45 a.m. with his nephew when he heard the faint sound of stone being hammered, from a gutter, just a few feet away from Priyadarshini Jewellers. He was awake as a relative had passed away. “I immediately called the owner of the store K. Raju, an old friend. He arrived on the scene within 10 minutes with cops,” he said. When members of the public and cops removed two stone slabs covering the gutter, they found four men tunnelling their way towards the shop. “They were probably just half-an-hour away from breaking in,” said Lokesh Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South). Other burglaries? Police said that the gang had visited this store on July 14 in the garb of customers. It appeared that the gang was tunnelling for the past one week at least. The men were staying in different lodges in the city, investigations have revealed. They had mechanised equipment and had tunnelled at least 15 feet. “Similar tunnels were dug to break into jewellery shops in Hassan, Shivamogga and Mysuru. We are probing if this gang was involved,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Lokesh Kumar. -The Hindu