Police arrest three burglars involved in Injambakkam heist

CHENNAI: Three members of a gang of burglars which broke into a businessman's bungalow near Olive Beach, Injambakkam and fled the state with valuables on January 30 were arrested by Neelankarai police from a hideout in Pune on Sunday.

The suspects Prakash Khadka, 30, Manoj Masi, 41, and 28-year-old Janak Prasad Jaishi were brought to Chennai where a court remanded them in judicial custody. Police are still searching for the absconded accomplices. Prakash had worked as an acting driver for the house owner a year ago.

The police team used different tactics, including tracking digital footprints and relying on traditional intelligence to nab the suspects who contacted each other only through social media. Police claim they recovered almost 90% of the stolen valuables but did not divulge the value of the stolen property.

Police said Brajesh Kumar, who is in the business of dry flower export, and his wife Amrita went to Germany recently. The couple live in a bungalow in Olive Beach, Injambakkam. On January 30, their housemaid found the lock of the front door tampered with and informed Amrita's brother Amit Kumar Aggarwal.

Amit later filed a complaint at the Neelankarai police station. Preliminary inquiries revealed that at least four safes from the almirah were missing. Adyar Deputy Commissioner of Police R Pon Karthik Kumar said, "The police team found them dumped, amid bushes, a few metres away from the house. While valuables were missing from two safes, the other two other were not opened."

Five special teams headed by Bharat, assistant commissioner, Thiruvanmiyur, were formed to nab the burglars. Sources claim CCTV footage in the house showed suspects heading to the strong room directly to loot the valuables. This made police suspect an insider's hand in the crime. The police team found that Brajesh Kumar had engaged Prakash Khadka, 30, as an acting driver for about a month in August last year. Inquiries revealed that Prakash, a native of Nepal, settled in Chennai in 2008.

The police suspected his role in the heist, and they tracked his location. An investigation officer said, "The teams were sent to Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi, Lucknow, Nepal border to prevent the suspects from entering Nepal with the stolen booty valued to be in crores."

Initially, police could not locate the gang as the members used only social media to contact each other and avoided phones. But the police team managed to nab one of the suspects.

Using his social media handle, the special team personnel lured the others to come to Pune to break open the two unbroken safes. Two of them landed and they were also nabbed. The finger prints of Manoj and Janak matched with those collected from the safes. They confessed to have conducted a recce before the burglary.