A police inspector from Chennai’s Maduravoyal was allegedly shot dead by a suspect in Pali district of Rajasthan in the wee hours of Wednesday. The inspector was part of an eight-member special team, which had gone to arrest two suspects in the burglary of a jewellery store in Chennai’s Kolathur.
Periyapandi, the deceased law and order inspector from Maduravoyal police station, hailed from Tirunelveli district.
He was shot dead around 2:30 am on Wednesday. An officer told The New Indian Express that the special team was going to nab the main suspects in the burglary case, when the policemen were pelted with stones and were attacked with iron rods.
Periyapandi was running to chase one suspect when he was shot at. The inspector died on the spot, while the other policemen suffered serious injuries.
On Monday, the Chennai police had arrested four men from Rajasthan who were allegedly a part of the robbery. The four-people arrested were Chennaram, Ellaram, Shankar Lal and Dauram. The special team was in search of two main suspects in the case, Nathuram who hails from Pali district in Rajasthan and Dinesh Chowdary from Jodhpur district, said a TOI report.
According to the police investigation, they had found that relatives had allegedly helped Nathuram and Dinesh in drilling the roof and robbing jewels from a jewellery shop.
On 16 November, the owner of Mahalakshmi Jewellery store in Kolathur had gone out for lunch when the burglars set their plan in motion. After drilling a hole through the roof of the shop between 1 pm and 3 pm, the burglars made off with 3.5 kg of gold jewellery, 4 kg silver jewellery and Rs 2 lakh cash. CCTV footage released by the police showed two men carrying what looked like polythene garbage bags and a gunny bag.
The inspector of Rajamangalam police station had earlier told TNM that the robbers had rented the first floor of the same building as the jewellery store. The men hailed from north India and the owner of the place had not taken any details from them. They had claimed that they would be opening a shop there soon.
(This article has been published in an arrangement with The News Minute)
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