Rourkela: Polie have arrested six members of a gang from Bihar and Jharkhand allegedly involved in looting gold jewellery from people on the pretext of cleaning those in Rourkela of Odisha’s Sundargarh district.
Police sources said the six persons including four from Bhagalpur in Bihar and one from Godda in Jharkhand had taken a house on rent in Rourkela in October 2021. They were staying in the rented house of Ashok Yadav at Gopabandhupalli in the city and carrying out the loot.
They used to move from door to door and ask for cleaning the gold jewellery by introducing themselves as jewellers. After the house owner brought the jewellery, they were looting those forcibly.
Following several such complaints, Rourkela police became alert and started looking for the gang. While two members of the gang had gone to a house in Revenue Colony in the city on October 24 and told the house owner about cleaning the jewellery, the police came to know about it and nabbed the two persons.
During questioning, the arrested persons revealed about the gang and the police arrested the rest four persons from their rented house in Gopabandhupalli. The police also seized 103 gram of gold jewellery from their possession. Besides, the house owner was also arrested.
They admitted their involvement in 21 such case out of the total 27 cases registered with the police. Besides Rourkela, their criminal activities had spread to neighbouring Jharsuguda, Deogarh and Sambalpur districts also, the sources said.
They also said they were selling the looted jewellery to two traders in Bhagalpur. Later, a police team from Rourkela went to Bhagalpur and arrested the two traders.
