Tamil Nadu: Burglary at Vellore’s Jos Alukkas cracked, jewellery worth Rs 8 crore recovered

With an arrest on Monday, police claimed to have cracked a December 15 burglary at a popular jewellery showroom in Vellore and recovered 15.9 kg of stolen gold and diamonds worth Rs 8 crore from a burial ground in Odukathur.

The police said they had analysed 200 pieces of footage from the streets near the Jos Alukkas showroom in Thottapalayam and found the accused, V Teekaraman, loitering around on a couple of occasions.

After being arrested from Odukathur, Teekaraman was taken to the crime site, where the police said his fingerprints could be matched with those collected from there before.

Teekaraman, of Kuchipalayam in Pallikonda, had allegedly watched the showroom closely for a period before drilling a hole on the wall at the back of the showroom to enter the store. He is a mason and has cases of two-wheeler and laptop thefts against him.

Vellore SP S Rajesh Kannan said the CCTV cameras and the burglary alarm at the store were not working at the time of the burglary. “Another major lapse was that there were no cameras surrounding the store… In a jewellery store, CCTVs need to be installed on all four sides,” he said.

Deputy Inspector of Police AG Babu told mediapersons that eight special teams formed under the Vellore superintendent of police had “sacrificed sleep and everything” to arrest the burglar and recover the loot within five days.