Jeweller fakes robbery, received bullet injuries in hand to escape repaying lenders

PRAYAGRAJ, March 28 (HS): To escape paying Rs. 5 lakh he owed to a Prayagraj city based jeweler he had taken for his gold jewellery business, a man got help of his friends to carry out a fake robbery of gold and other ornaments from him at Iradatganj flyover on Friday.  While the “robbery” itself was carried out convincingly – the jeweller got himself thrashed with sticks and one of his friend opening fire on him, causing bullet injury in the hand. The police scrutinized the call detail records to determine that the entire incident involving shooting and loot was stage managed by the jeweler in connivance with his friends. “The aim was to kill two birds with one stone. But we blew the lid off his plan after scrutinizing his call detail records, in which, he along with his close friend Sarvesh Mishra used to be present at the same place and were in constant touch with each other” said Inspector Ghoorpur.

The accused jeweler has been identified as Shiv Kumar Soni, son of Kanhaiya Lal Soni and resident of Chidi under Ghoorpur police station. On Friday night, accused jeweler’s brother Girdhari Lal arrived at Ghoorpur police station and informed that his brother had been shot at by three unidentified men at Iradatganj flyover who came on a scooty and looted the bag containing gold and ornaments from him.

Interestingly, police cracked the mystery and came to the conclusion that it was eventually a fake robbery, during the interrogation of jewelers close friend Sarvesh Mishra, who spilled the beans and revealed the names of person involved in the incident.

The police have arrested Sarvesh Mishra, Dhanraj Bhartiya, accused jeweler Shiv Kumar Soni and his brother Girdhari Lal and Mantu Soni. Country made pistols, live cartridges and looted jewelry were recovered from their possession.

The accused jeweler Shiv Kumar Soni had taken a loan from three brothers of a bullion trader’s family in Atarsuiya locality but his business never took off the way he had hoped. It turned worse during the lockdown as he got no business and the lenders were pressuring him to repay the loan instantly.

“Shiv Kumar thought that if he could show that his gold stock was robbed, he could avoid having to pay the loan. So, he roped in his two friends Sarvesh and Dhanraj who fired and injured him on the hand. He had planned to implicate his lenders under the false charges of attempt to murder,” said IG range, KP Singh while speaking to HS.