Nagpur: In a curious incident, three interstate burglars threw away diamonds worth Rs 8.5 lakh thinking the precious stones to be fake ones. The incident came to the fore as Government Railway Police (GRP), Nagpur, last week nabbed the thieves who had committed a series of thefts in running trains.
The thieves, according to police, might have thought that the diamonds studded with gold ornaments were fake ones. The criminals smashed the diamonds with stone and iron rods before throwing them away. Two women onboard Howrah-Mumbai Geetanjali Express were robbed of their purses near Gondia Railway Station on August 10. One purse contained gold ornaments worth Rs 19 lakh while the other purse had valuables worth Rs 1 lakh, according to reports.
After registering offences at Gondia Police Station, cops formed a special team following a rise in theft cases on trains between Kolkata and Nagpur. Cops scanned reservation charts and CCTV footage and found that three passengers from Nagaon in Assam were travelling in the train at the time of the theft. Later, the police screened the CCTV footage at different railway stations including Nagpur, Gondia and Durg. Subsequently, a police team went to Assam and detained the three accused who were identified as Nayanmuni Medhi (26), his younger brother Dipjyoti Medhi (22) and Sanju Rai (28).
Interrogation of the accused trio revealed that they melted the gold ornaments and sold them to a goldsmith in Assam. It also came to light that the gold ornaments were studded with diamonds but the thieves were ignorant about it. Thinking the precious stones as fake ones, the thieves threw away the diamonds, police said adding the accused trio is currently under police custody remand.
