Jewellery shop looted

Armed robbers targeted a jewellery showroom in the posh Civil Lines area of the city on Wednesday and managed to decamp with jewellery worth around Rs 30 lakh.

The manner in which the crime was executed reminded the traders in the area of the DDamas jewellery showroom robbery-cum-murder in 2011. The police said they were working on a few clues but there was no breakthrough yet.

A delegation of the traders also met senior police officials in this connection. The traders have been assured that the police would try to solve the case before Holi.

The incident occurred around 8 pm in Shankar Market on Tashkent Road. Shop owner Deepak Vaishya said: Three persons with masked faces came into the showroom when it was about to close for the day. One of them whipped out a gun and put it to my head. They told me to hand over jewellery or they would kill me.

Vaishya,who had shifted the shop to its present location from Johnstonganj nearly a year ago,was forced to open the safe in which some jewellery was kept. One of the robbers cleared all the jewellery into a bag. The other two cleaned off the jewellery in the display counters of the shop.

Shop assistant Ravi said the robbers stayed in the shop for not more than five to seven minutes. Nobody in the neighbourhood realised what happened, he said. The manner in which the crime has been executed indicates they were not novices, said IG (Allahabad Range) B P Jogdand,who visited the spot last night.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram