Mangalore, Jul 19: The Dakshina Kannada district police have been successful in nabbing seven persons in connection with inter-district thefts at various temples and Jain shrines and seized several valuable silver and gold antique artefacts from their possession.
The arrested are Thimmayya (55) son of late Rangegowda from Kadur in Chikmagalur district, Somanath alias Somesh (45) son of late Papaiya from Arasikere in Hassan district, Jayaraj (45) son of Era Shetty from Kuvempunagar in Hassan district, Ganga alias Gangaraj (40) son of Krishnegowda from Kattaya Hobli in Hassan district, Babu alias Rudra alias Rajesh (55) from Belthangady, Rajendra (65) from Shimoga and Netra alias Netravathi (38) wife of Anand from Hassan district.
Stolen valuables are estimated to cost about Rs 17 lakhs
Producing the arrested men at his office here on Friday, Superintendent of Police Abhishek Goyal said that the arrests were made in Manihalla in Bantwal taluk.
About 18 grams of gold and 20 kg of silver was seized from the culprits, out of which 9.5 kg silver ornaments were found intact while the rest were melted into silver bars. Among the valuables seized were six antique panchaloha idols from Jain shrines. The ornaments have been valued at Rs 17 lakhs.
The operation
Mr Goyal said that following thefts at temples in various places from April this year, a special team led by Bantwal Deputy Superintendent of Police Sadananda Vernekar had been formed to probe the thefts.
On the basis of information that the gang of thieves used a getaway vehicle in their heists, the police began inspecting vehicles at check-points across the districts during night from the past month. On the night of July 12, a Tata Indica was spotted at Nekkiladi in Uppinangadi which managed to escape police checking. Moving in the direction of Bantwal, the car was intercepted at Manihalla by Bantwal rural police, leading to the arrest of five accused.
The Indica had a fake license plate bearing registration number KA-19-B-9116, the real one being KA-13-B-1691.
To avoid police scrutiny, the gang had taken Netra along with them, who was involved in one theft. Accused Jayaraj was the driver, who drove the getaway car after a theft.
The police arrested Babu and Somanath after obtaining their whereabouts from the five arrested in Bantwal. Based on their statements, the police also seized a Maruti Omni from Hassan owned by driver Jayaraj, which was used in a theft and recovered two idols from their residences.
Babu would inform the others about the prominent temples in the district and make plans for them to rob at night. Five of the gang members had been involved in old robbery cases and had served time in jail. Rajendra had over 20 cases of theft and robbery lodged against him.
'Install CCTV cameras in temples'
On the occasion, Mr Goyal made a request to the management of temples to implement security measures such as installing CCTV cameras, anti-burglary alarms and deploying guards in temples, to prevent thefts and also help in investigation if one took place.
Police team
The team that conducted the investigation comprised of Bantwal circle inspector Anil S Kulkarni, Uppinangady PSI Ravi B S, Belthangady PSI Yogish Kumar, Punjalkatte PSI Jayananda, personnel Jagannath Shetty, K J Lakshman, Jayakumar, Girish, Madhava, Kumar Angadi and Sunita from Bantwal rural station, Ramesh, Dharmapal, Vasu Naik and Pradeep from Bantwal town station, Praveen from Vittal police station, Praveen, Sundara Shetty, Harish and Rajesh from Belthangady station, ASI Sanjeeva Purush, Uday, Taranath, Iqbal and Chandra from District Crime Intelligence Branch, Manjunath, Prashanth, Sampath and Ritesh from computer wing and drivers Vijayeshwar and Mohan along with Girish Rodkar and Laxman from Bantwal revenue department.
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