Kadapa jewellery shop employee caught with stolen gold within 5 hrs after robbing shop

Kadapa: The Kadapa I-Town police arrested a jewellery shop employee and recovered stolen property worth Rs. 1.2 crore and cash Rs. 45,000 from him. The arrest was made within five hours of receiving the complaint, the police said.

According to the police, Shaik Masood, a resident of Nakash in Kadapa city, has been working at Mehtab jewellery shop for the past 20 years. He had gained the confidence of the shop owner Shaik Masthan.

Recently, Masood had provided surety to secure a loan for his relative. However, the relative failed to repay the loan and the creditors started putting pressure on Masood. Following this, he came up with a plan to secure money to pay off the creditors.

Every morning, Masood used to go to the shop owner's house to pick up the keys to open the shop. Shaik Masthan would come to the shop shortly after Masood arrived. With this in mind, the accused had made a copy of the keys and kept them with him.

On 11 May, Shaik Masthan and Masood locked the shop and went home for lunch. But Masood came back to the shop later and opened the shutters with his duplicate keys. He stole 2.66 kg of gold jewellery and Rs. 45,000 cash.

Shaik Mastan came to the shop at 3 p.m and found the shop had been robbed. He immediately complained to Kadapa I-Town CI T.V Satyanarayana. Based on his complaint, a case was registered under sections 454 and 380 of the IPC and an investigation was launched.

The police said Masood was on his way to Tirupati after stealing the gold. He was arrested when the cops were conducting checks at the Balu Palli check-post near Railway Koduru.