Bhubaneswar: Police have recovered a major portion of the gold and diamond jewellery stolen from the residence of city-based builder Pritam Kumar Jena in Laxmi Sagar here, with the valuables being traced to a hotel room in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, commissioner of police S Dev Datta Singh said on Monday.
The recovery was made after police teams tracked the accused across several locations in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. The accused, who has 19 cases against him and was recently released on bail from a jail in Goa, is yet to be arrested, Singh said.
Briefing the media, the commissioner said the burglary appeared to have been committed by a lone operator and police had been conducting a continuous search using both manpower and technology.
“We have detected the case and recovered the stolen valuables. The accused is yet to be apprehended and, therefore, we cannot share minute details of the investigation at this stage,” Singh said.
According to police, the accused initially stayed at a hotel in Puri after travelling from Ranchi to Bhubaneswar by bus. When a police team reached the hotel, he fled the spot.
The investigation subsequently led the team to Berhampur and Girisola in Ganjam district before taking them to Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. Police then tracked his movements to Vizianagaram and Vijayawada.
Singh said police used human intelligence, digital footprints and other available information to establish the accused’s movements and identify the places where he had stayed.
The accused, however, managed to flee from several locations before the police teams could apprehend him.
The police team finally reached a hotel in Nellore after receiving information that the accused could be staying there. A small team was deployed to catch him, but he fled again before police could apprehend him.
When police searched the hotel room after his escape, they recovered a large quantity of the stolen valuables that he had left behind.
The recovered items include large gold necklaces, diamond necklaces, diamond rings, diamond earrings, diamond nose pins, gold chains, a gold statue of Lord Jagannath, a diamond pendant, a gold pendant and Rs 15,000 in cash.
Police said the accused apparently did not get enough time to take all the valuables with him while fleeing.
“Most of the valuables have been recovered and efforts are on to apprehend the accused,” Singh said.
The burglary took place late on July 31 at Jena’s residence in the Laxmi Sagar area. Unidentified miscreants allegedly broke into the house and decamped with gold ornaments, cash and other valuables worth more than Rs 1 crore. Jena and his family were away when the burglary took place between 10pm and 11pm.
The theft came to light after the family returned home and found the premises ransacked. They subsequently informed the police.
A team from Laxmi Sagar police station reached the spot and launched an investigation.
Police then began tracking the accused using human intelligence and digital inputs. The investigation took the teams through several locations in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh before the stolen valuables were finally recovered from the hotel room in Nellore.
The accused is yet to be apprehended and police said efforts are underway to trace and arrest him.
