Four men broke into a jewellery shop in Borivali (West) on Sunday and made away with ₹28 lakh in front of the owner and minutes before a police patrolling team reached the spot.
Subodh Jaggannath Karekar owns Jaggannath Gangaram Karekar jewellers store at Prerna Nagar. At 5.30 am, he got a call from a resident of the building that houses his shop on the ground floor. The caller said some robbers had broken open the shutter of his store. The jeweller, who resides in the vicinity, rushed to the spot along with his wife and 14-year-old son.
Karekar noticed that the grill door in front of the shutter was open and when he went closer, he found that the glass door of his shop was broken. “The CCTV camera on the main entrance was also smashed,” he told the police, adding, he could hear noises from the inside but did not enter apprehending that the robbers might be armed.
Ninad Sawant, senior police inspector of Borivali police station, said as the shutter was half open, Karekar bent down and saw two men opening his locker. “He used his presence of mind and dialled 100 before alerting the residents and passers-by.”
The four wrapped the cash in a plastic bag and walked out of the shop as Karekar and his family looked on, and fled in a four-wheeler towards Lokmanya Tilak Road.
“Our patrolling team reached there within five minutes and chased the vehicle but lost it,” Sawant said and added that they had a lead and would arrest the accused soon.