Jewellery store owners grilled, made to switch off mobiles

Amit Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 4

The two owners of Forever Diamonds, a jewellery store in Sector 17 where a Rs 14 crore heist took place on May 1, were questioned by the Chandigarh Police at the operations cell, Sector 26, throughout the day today.

They were asked to switch off their mobiles during the questioning, which continued till late in the evening.

Three robbers, including a woman, all believed to be in their mid-twenties, had robbed the jewellery store at gunpoint. The robbers also took the DVR along, in which the CCTV footage was recorded.

While several teams are exploring various angles and also scrutinising the dump data, one of the teams of the operations cell today questioned the store owners, Vinod Verma and Rajnish Verma.

Their family members, however, raised objections over the day-long grilling by the police.

Vinod said they were willing to cooperate with the police as it was part of the investigation.  The glass case behind which the DVR was kept had already been removed, which has raised suspicion.  The investigation has revealed that the glass case was removed a few days before the robbery after the DVR started making a loud noise. The glass was not fixed back. 

Sources said there was a strong suspicion that the robbers knew where the DVR was kept, which would have been possible only if some insider provided them information about it.