New Delhi: Lokesh Srivas, 31, would probably have managed to evade the police for longer, if a “friend” had not spilled the beans on him and the police had not chanced upon his image on Google.
According to police sources, on Thursday, Lokesh Rao, an accused in a theft case in Telangana, who is currently in the custody of Durg police in Chhattisgarh, told assistant sub-inspector Shamit Mishra (of Durg police) during interrogation that “his friend has done a bada kaam (big job) in Delhi”. Rao and Srivas had allegedly committed a theft together in Secunderabad.
Mishra then shared the input he had received from Rao to a batchmate in Delhi Police leading to Srivas’s arrest.
In the early morning hours of Friday, days after allegedly looting gold and diamond jewellery worth over Rs. 20 crore from a shop in South East Delhi, Srivas was finally arrested by Chhattisgarh Police. Delhi Police is yet to get his custody.
Bilaspur Superintendent of Police, Santosh Singh, told ThePrint that Srivas is wanted in 14 cases of burglary, of which seven are registered in Bilaspur., including a case of jewellery theft in five shops on two different occasions last month.
SP Bilaspur said that 18.5 kg gold jewellery was seized from Srivas at the time of arrest, along with Rs 12.50 cash. The police are now trying to ascertain whether all of it was looted from the Delhi store. Around 30 kg of jewellery was looted from the store in Delhi.
“Based on technical surveillance, it revealed that the accused had booked a bus from Delhi to Sagar leaving at 9.00 pm, on Monday. A team was immediately dispatched to ISBT, Kashmere Gate and the suspect was tracked to Bhilai Chhattisgarh. A team of Delhi Police officers reached Raipur Thursday,” DCP ( South East Delhi) Rajesh Deo said.
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The burglary
ThePrint had earlier reported how the owners of Delhi’s Umrao Jewellers had discovered a theft in their shop Tuesday, after the store remained closed between Saturday and Monday.
What made the probe difficult was that the accused had destroyed CCTV inside the store making it difficult for the police to identify him. According to the police, the theft was committed by allegedly entering the four-storey building where the jewellery shop is located, through a neighbouring building. The accused then allegedly came down the stairs and drilled a hole into the strong room of the store, before leaving with all the jewellery there.
The police were able to recover CCTV footage from outside the store, which showed the suspect entering the building Sunday night, around 10:45 pm, and leaving on Monday evening around 5 pm, indicating that he spent nearly 18 hours inside the shop.
The footage from outside the store was, however, not clear enough to identify the accused.
After Mishra shared the input about Srivas with his batchmate in Delhi, Delhi Police did a Google search and found his image online.
The information available online purportedly showed the accused to be a native of Chhattisgarh’s Kabirdham, with multiple cases of theft and burglary registered against him. It also showed that he had been arrested in February last year, when gold jewellery worth Rs 3.5 crores was said to have been recovered from his house.
It was an image taken of Srivas at a press conference at the time and which was now available on Google that finally helped Delhi police identify him. The image also matched another CCTV image of the Delhi theft suspect which showed him buying a bus ticket at the national capital’s ISBT depot.
Laying the trap
According to police, Srivas, a class 12 dropout used to earlier work as a barber and entered the world of burglary in 2016. He was first arrested in 2017, when 8 kg of gold jewellery was recovered from him. He had also been arrested in theft cases in 2019 and 2022.
After identification efforts by Durg, Bilaspur and Delhi police helped identify the accused as Srivas, a team of Delhi Police was dispatched to Chhattisgarh to arrest him.
However, in a parallel development, Bilaspur Police, which also wanted Srivas in multiple cases of theft, reached his suspected hideout in Chhattisgarh’s Kabirdham Thursday morning.
While Srivas managed to escape, according to police sources, the cops were able to arrest his alleged associate Shiva Chandravasi from there.
Srivas and Chandravasi had allegedly worked together in last month’s Bilaspur burglary cases.
Based on Chandravasi’s input, police teams then reached a second hideout of Srivas in Bhilai.
Police sources told ThePrint that around 5:45 a.m. Friday Srivas came to the hideout and was arrested by Bilaspur police after a chase.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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