After week-long hunt for ‘stolen’ diamonds, Mumbai police find they weren’t missing

Police had started looking for the accused by scanning CCTV cameras along the road.

However, it was while recording the statement of an employee who was on leave last week that they found that the diamonds were kept in another compartment of the vault which was locked and was never touched.

The police will now be closing the case as it was registered due to misunderstanding.

Senior inspector of MIDC police station Satish Gaikwad said, ” We had registered an FIR last week after we received a complaint that diamonds worth over Rs 1 crore were stolen from a company and began investigating the matter last week. However, earlier this week, a company employee said that the diamonds were not missing but kept in a locker which had not been disturbed. The police team went to verify the same and found the diamonds after the particular compartment of the vault was opened. We will be closing the case as it was registered on account of a misunderstanding.”

An officer said that the jewellery showroom had been taken over by a nationalised bank in October last year over some dispute.

Ever since then, the bank was overseeing the jewellery unit and had also hired a security guard to keep an eye out.

The security guard, however, had stopped coming a month back after he was not paid the due salary.

The officer said that they had alerted the officials to hire security as it was risky.

The bank officials felt their worst fears had come true last week when they found the vault open, and four of the six compartments unlocked as well.

The employees assumed that they had been robbed and duly reported the matter to the police. “While we began our investigations, one team was going through CCTV cameras while another was recording statements of current and former employees of the company. It was during the statement of one such employee that it came to light that diamonds were infact kept in another compartment and not the one from where it was reported stolen. We went along with him and found the diamonds kept in the unlocked section,” the officer added.