Punjab Police bust interstate gang targeting religious places; four held

Chandigarh, Aug 22 (IANS) In a major breakthrough, Punjab Police have solved the sensational Khanna Shiv Mandir theft case in less than a week by busting an interstate theft gang targeting religious places with the arrest of its four members, said Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav here on Thursday.

The operation was accomplished with the cooperation from Chandigarh Police, Uttarakhand Police and Uttar Pradesh Police.

Those arrested have been identified as Resham Singh of Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand; Ravi Kumar of Ropar; Honey of Mahindpur in Ropar; and Rajeev Kumar of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

As per the information, on August 15 at around 4.30 a.m., unknown persons entered the Shivpuri Temple in Khanna through window panes on roof of temple and stole various gold and silver ornaments, including silver gagar (which was placed above Shivling Maharaj), silver garland around Shivling Maharaj, silver flute of Krishna Maharaj, silver crowns and gold ornaments of all the idols in the temple, besides desecrating the Shivling Maharaj.

DGP Yadav said police teams from Khanna have successfully arrested four accused involved in this case and recovered the 3.63 kg silver, which was stolen from the temple, from their possession.

He said preliminary investigations have revealed that the gang was planning robberies in temples of Tamil Nadu and Telangana, which have been thwarted.

Further investigations are underway and more arrests are expected, he added.

Sharing operation details, Senior Superintendent of Police (Khanna) Ashwini Gotyal, while addressing the media, said acting swiftly, special teams were formed under the supervision of SP Investigation Saurav Jindal to trace the case and investigation of the case was carried out by scientific-technical means and using human intelligence.

She said during the investigation of the case, inputs were received that an interstate gang of thieves carry out thefts in temples and other religious places. Acting swiftly on the inputs, special police teams conducted raids in different districts of Punjab and other states and, with the help of Uttarakhand Police, managed to trace and arrest the first accused, identified as Resham Singh, she said.

She said apart from this, with the help of Chandigarh Police, the accused Ravi Kumar was arrested from Chandigarh and accused Honey was arrested from Ropar.

She said the police have identified one more accused, Mohit of Utawal in Aligarh of Uttar Pradesh, an associate of this gang, who is yet to be arrested.

During investigation of the case, it has also come to light that this gang of thieves used to sell the stolen silver and gold ornaments to jeweller Rajeev Kumar, alias Soni, who was nominated as accused in this case and was arrested from Lucknow and the stolen jewellery was recovered from his possession, she said, adding the accused is being interrogated in-depth, from which more theft incidents are likely to be revealed.

Notably, the jeweller has already been facing 12 criminal cases of theft.

Gotyal said from the investigation conducted so far in the case, it has come to light that this gang has committed theft at many religious places in different states and there are various cases registered against these persons in different states for stealing from religious places.