The Chhattisgarh police has arrested two persons in connection with a Rs 20-crore burglary from a jewellery store in New Delhi earlier this week and recovered around 18.5 kg of gold and diamond ornaments from them, a senior official said on Friday.

A joint team of officials from the anti-crime and cyber unit and the Civil Line police station in Bilaspur district carried out the operation while probing a series of thefts in Bilaspur city, Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh told PTI.

The arrested persons have been identified as Lokesh Srivas, who is allegedly involved in seven thefts in Bilaspur, and Shiva Chandravanshi, he said.

Acting on a tip-off about Srivas being present in Kawardha town of Chhattisgarh's Kabirdham district, the team conducted a raid there on Wednesday and arrested Chandravanshi along with ornaments worth Rs 23 lakh, he said.

By that time, Srivas had managed to escape, the SP said.

The team then tracked down Srivas to a house under the Smritinagar police station jurisdiction in Durg district and recovered 18.5 kg of gold and diamond jewellery and Rs 12.5 lakh in cash from him, Singh said.

Investigation revealed that the jewellery were stolen from a store in New Delhi, he said, adding a team of the Delhi police has also arrived in Chhattisgarh and further investigation into the matter is underway.

Mahaveer Prasad Jain, the owner of the jewellery showroom in Delhi, told reporters, "We are thankful to the police. We have seen the pictures of the recovered items and identified those as the ornaments have tags on them. We do not know the arrested persons." According to the Delhi Police, at least three people were involved in the burglary, which was one of the biggest in the national capital. The criminals broke into the shop, made a hole in a strong room and decamped with ornaments worth more than Rs 20 crore as well as Rs 5 lakh in cash earlier this week.

The shop, Umrao Singh Jewellers, in south Delhi's Bhogal, had several CCTV cameras but they were damaged around Sunday midnight, the police said.

The owner closed the shop on Sunday around 8 pm and when he opened it on Tuesday around 10.30 am, he got to know about the incident. The shop remains closed on Monday.

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