Investigators of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have registered a case in connection with the disappearance of gold from a car parked in a police station in Belagavi district.
Based on a complaint from Tilak Pujari, a Mangaluru-based gold trader, Inspector Anand Kumar has registered a First Information Report (FIR).
This follows the transfer of the case from the District Police to the CID earlier this month. The complainant has in the complaint suspected that police officers may be involved in the theft of property.
The complaint stated that Mr. Pujari’s driver and two assistants were carrying 4.9 kg of gold, valued at around ₹2.25 crore, in the air bag of his car. They were transporting it from Mangaluru to Upari village in Maharashtra, to be moulded into gold jewellery.
Acting on the instruction of senior officers, officers of Yamakanamaradi Police stopped the car. This was on the suspicion that the three persons in the car were carrying valuables without proper documents.
Local police officers filed a case related to suspicious movement and carrying of valuables without documents.
The car was parked in the Yamakanamaradi Police Station as per the property forwarding clause. The police submitted relevant documents to a court in Sankeshwar in this connection. Then, the court ordered the release of the vehicle on April 16. The car owner realised, within a few hours of its release, that the gold was missing. He submitted a petition to the Inspector-General of Police saying that he had hid the gold in the air bag of the car, as he was apprehensive of highway robbers striking them.
“We did not tell the police about it as we were in fear,” he said in the complaint. All these statements are included in the fact-sheet of the FIR, police sources said.
A team led by CID Superintendent of Police Raghavendra Hegde is investigating all angles, including the possible involvement of police officers in the theft, CID sources said.
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