Global Positioning System (GPS) and prompt coordination between Bengal and Jharkhand police helped the law enforcers catch one of the alleged robbers involved in the jewellery shop heist and seized the car in which they were fleeing within hours of the crime in West Burdwan's Raniganj town on Sunday.
Acting on a tip-off, Jharkhand police located the car that was hijacked by the goons who left the owner injured. They drove the car to a forest stretch in Jharkhand's Giridih but the cops intercepted it after a chase on Sunday night.
The police arrested Suraj Kumar Singh, 26, a resident of Bihar, from the car and recovered firearms and cartridges from him. However, the other goons had managed to escape. The police suspected they might have hidden in a forest in Giridih, which is known as a Maoist belt.
Jharkhand police informed their counterparts in West Burdwan about the capture of one of the robbers there.
A police team from Asansol-Durgapur police commissionerate led by one assistant commissioner of police went to Giridih. They brought Singh, the seized car and firearm back to Asansol.
Singh was produced in the Asansol chief judicial magistrate's court on Monday and remanded in 14 days of police custody.
On Sunday, a gang of seven to eight armed robbers barged into a branded jewellery shop in West Burdwan's Raniganj town and got involved in a gunfight with the police when a team of cops arrived at the spot and tried to intercept them.
CCTV footage showed that one of the robbers suffered a bullet injury in the encounter but all of them managed to escape in three motorcycles.
While escaping, the robbers intercepted a private car at gunpoint in Asansol, 12-km away from Raniganj, and forced the owner-driver to get off. When car owner Nayan Dutta refused, he was dragged out and shot in the leg.
Dutta was admitted to Asansol district hospital by his wife and local people after the goons left.