Rs 94 lakh-worth jewellery looted

They soon sprang a surprise on the staffers inside the shop, threatening them with handguns and choppers. The robbers, in their mid-twenties, threatened the shop owner Rasikbhai Ghurubhai Sallah and asked him to hand over keys of the cupboard. When he refused, one of the armed men stabbed him on his right hand with a chopper and snatched the bunch of keys.

Opening the cupboard, the robbers then grabbed the booty, comprising gold, silver and diamonds, and got into a white Tata Sumo outside the shop, believed to have been stolen.

than 15 minutes, and there were seven staffers inside the shop, including five saleswomen, when the robbery took place. Initialinvestigations provided little insight, but police suspect this could be the work of the same gang which looted Kanchan Jewellers at Anand Nagar, Dahisar, last month. In that case too, the robbers were identified to be in their mid-twenties and had used a stolen car to escape from the scene of crime.

Additional commissioner of police (north-west region) Dr Satya Pal Singh, said today’s robbery took place due to the sheer negligence of the jeweller.

Six days ago, the police held a meeting with jewellers of the area, in which the owner of Giriraj Jewellers, Rasikbhai Sallah, was also present, Dr Singh said. Sallah was then advised by the police to employ security guards, as his was the biggest jewellery shop in the area and a robbery had taken place in Dahisar the previous month. This afternoon, five minutes before the robbery took place, a police officer visited the shop and found just one thin watchman standing guard outside. The watchman disappeared immediately after the robbery took place. Policesuspect he was involved with the robbers, and are on the look-out for him.