Robbers attack jeweller, son in ₹8 crore gold, cash heist
LUCKNOW: At least seven armed miscreants attacked and injured a city jeweller, shot at his son and decamped with gold ornaments and cash worth over Rs 8 crore from their shop in Chowk here on Sunday night.
The father-son duo, who were attacked when they resisted the robbers, were undergoing treatment at KGMU’s trauma centre, till last reports came in.
The incident happened barely 100 metres away from the Chowk police station but the cops were unaware about it until the robbers escaped, unchallenged.
According to reports, the robbers barged into the shop – Mukund Jewellers -- when Praveen Rastogi and his son Jeetanshu alias Lallan, along with five of their employees, where busy calculating the week’s sale proceeds inside the shop at around 9.15pm. The miscreants immediately overpowered the father-son duo and employees by taking them on gunpoint. Sources said the robbers ransacked the entire shop and collected the gold ornaments and cash in a sack. “They carried away gold ornaments weighing around 25 kg and cash of about Rs 1.10 crore,” said a source.
He said the robbers turned violent when Praveen tried to resist them. They hit him on the head with the butt of a firearm. The robbers then opened fire on Jeetanshu when he came to rescue his father. He suffered a bullet wound on his right leg.
Police said preliminary probe suggested that the robbers reached the shop walking as they ‘might have’ parked their vehicle at some distance from the crime scene. ASP-West Jai Prakash Yadav said police have procured the CCTV footage and some substantial leads have been obtained. He said a crime branch team and surveillance sleuths have been roped in to work out the crime.