The couple fled to Aurangabad and then to Jalna after decamping with valuables worth Rs 40 lakh from a jewellery store in Bhayander; the woman wore a burqa and the man shaved off his moustache and head
After changing cities as well as appearances to avoid capture, a 30-year-old woman and her husband were finally nabbed by Navghar police yesterday, two days after she drugged a jeweller and looted gold from him worth Rs 40 lakh.
The woman, identified as Anuradha Kalyani, was known to Lokesh Joshi, the owner of Mangal-Murti Jewellers in the Golden Nest area of Bhayandar (East). She offered to perform a ritual at his shop to bring prosperity.
She arrived at about 11 am on Sunday and after performing some rituals, offered him sweetmeats and a liquid, claiming that it was ‘prasad’. The liquid was laced with sedatives.
After consuming the spiked ‘prasad’, Joshi and his employee Vikram Singh fell unconscious. Seizing the opportunity, Kalyani escaped with all the gold ornaments, making sure she removed the data storage set from the CCTV cameras installed in the shop and took it with her. Joshi and Singh were rushed to the nearby Jugura Hospital. After regaining consciousness, Joshi approached the police and filed a complaint.
According to the police officers, they tried to trace the woman with the help of her phone number, which Joshi had. “We tracked her location through her phone, and it showed Aurangabad,” said a police officer. The police learnt during investigations that Kalyani’s uncle had his home in Aurangabad.
“We left for Aurangabad the next day and learnt that she had eaten lunch at her uncle’s house and left for Jalna, after failing to find any buyers for the stolen gold in Aurangabad,” said PI Kishore Khairnar, from the Thane (rural) Crime Branch. Investigations also revealed that Kalyani had donned a burqa to avoid being identified, and that her husband, later identified as a Satya Prakash Kalyani (24), had shaved off his head and moustache.
“Kalyani had contacted her friend Sahil, who was in Jalna, asking for help to mortgage the ornaments,” added the cop. They laid a trap for the woman at the friend’s residence, and nabbed her last morning. “The woman, who stays in a complex nearby, was apparently known to the jeweller. We suspect the involvement of more people in the crime,” confirmed Senior PI Dinkar Pingle. A case has been registered under sections 328 and 380 of the IPC.
