A court in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh has sent Lokesh Srivas, the main accused arrested in the case of jewelery theft worth Rs 20 crore from a jewelery shop in Delhi, to the transit remand of Delhi Police for three days. Police officials said on Tuesday that the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Manish Kumar Dubey sent Lokesh Shrivas, arrested in the jewelery theft case, to the transit remand of Delhi Police for three days. Now Delhi Police will interrogate him thoroughly about the incident.
Lokesh Shriwas is accused of theft of jewelery worth around Rs 20 crore from a jewelery shop in New Delhi and involvement in several thefts in Bilaspur city, officials said. Civil Lines police station in-charge Pradeep Arya said that the accused Shrivas, arrested on Friday last week, was presented in the court on Tuesday. Accused Shriwas was in police custody in Bilaspur till October 3.
Arya said that the court has granted three-day transit remand for accused Shrivas to Delhi Police. The court, while giving a memorandum to Delhi Police, said that after three days of transit remand, within the next seven days, Delhi Police will complete its investigation and present the accused Shrivas in Bilaspur. Bilaspur, Delhi, Durg and Raipur police took joint action and arrested Shriwas from Durg district on Friday.
Gold and diamond jewelery worth about Rs 12 crore and Rs 12 lakh 50 thousand in cash were recovered from the possession of Lokesh Shriwas. Earlier, the police had arrested Shrivas’s associate Shiva Chandravanshi from Kawardha city on Thursday. Police had recovered gold and silver jewellery, vehicles and goods worth Rs 23 lakh from Chandravanshi. Chandravanshi was sent to judicial custody on Friday.
Police officials said that Shrivas is also accused of theft of Rs 20 crore from a jewelery shop in Bhogal area of Delhi. According to Delhi Police, this theft is one of the biggest thefts in the national capital.
Police officials said that at the beginning of the week, the accused broke into the strong room of a shop named Umrao Singh Jewelers and escaped with jewelery worth more than Rs 20 crore and Rs 5 lakh in cash. Several CCTV cameras were installed in the shop but they were damaged on Sunday night. The shop owner had closed the shop at around 8 pm on Sunday night. He came to know about the incident when he opened his shop around 10.30 am on Tuesday. The shop remains closed on Monday.