The special investigating team (SIT) of Purulia police have arrested two persons from Delhi and Jharkhand in connection with the gold and diamond jewellery shop heist in Purulia on August 29.

Police claimed seven persons were involved in the crime with the mastermind lodged in a jail in Jharkhand.

“We have arrested Karanjit Singh Sidhu from Jharkhand’s Dhanbad and Vikas Kumar from Delhi. They are a part of the seven-member gang that robbed the store of a major jewellery chain in Purulia town on August 29. The robbery was planned by a person who is still lodged in a jail in Jharkhand. We will interrogate them in our custody to trace the rest of the gang members,” said Abhijit Banerjee, the superintendent of police of Purulia district.

He did not divulge the name of the mastermind for the sake of the probe.

The SIT team will visit the Jharkhand jail soon to interrogate the mastermind, sources said.

The police said Vikas was arrested on September 5 from Delhi and brought
to Purulia on transit remand for three days.

The police said they got the name of Karanjit, aka Kamal, from Vikas during interrogations.

Cops investigating the case said Karanjit used to visit the Jharkhand jail frequently to meet the mastermind of the crime and prepared a blueprint on his directions.

“The gang conducted a thorough inspection of the jewellery shop and its surroundings for an entire day before committing the crime. They assembled at a place in Jharkhand, which is some 50km away from Purulia, on the day of the crime and set off for the operation,” said an SIT official.

On August 29 afternoon, a gang of seven armed robbers raided the branded gold and diamond jewellery chain in Purulia town and decamped with ornaments worth Rs 8 crore. The criminals also took away the hard disk of the CCTV footage from the shop before leaving and trussed up the two security guards.

Almost simultaneously, another gang robbed another showroom of the same jewellery chain in Ranaghat some 200 km away in Nadia district. Five robbers were intercepted by the police in Ranaghat during a chase and two of them were injured in an exchange of fire between the two sides.

One of the five robbers Manikant Kumar Yadav, who was arrested in connection with the Ranaghat heist, died at a Calcutta-based hospital in the early hours of Friday morning.