GPS and Inter-State Police Coordination Lead to Arrest of Alleged Robber

In a swift response to a jewellery shop heist in West Burdwan’s Raniganj town, the combined efforts of Bengal and Jharkhand police, aided by the Global Positioning System (GPS), led to the arrest of one of the alleged robbers within hours of the crime on Sunday.

Acting on a tip-off, Jharkhand police located the car hijacked by the robbers, who had left the owner injured. The criminals drove the car to a forest stretch in Jharkhand’s Giridih, but the police intercepted it after a chase on Sunday night.

The police arrested Suraj Kumar Singh, 26, a resident of Bihar, from the car and recovered firearms and cartridges from him. However, the other robbers managed to escape, and the police suspect they might have hidden in a forest in Giridih, known as a Maoist belt.

Jharkhand police promptly informed their counterparts in West Burdwan about the capture of one of the robbers. A police team from the Asansol-Durgapur police commissionerate, led by an assistant commissioner of police, went to Giridih. They brought Singh, the seized car, and firearm back to Asansol.

Singh was produced in the Asansol chief judicial magistrate’s court on Monday and remanded in 14 days of police custody.

On Sunday, a gang of seven to eight armed robbers had barged into a branded jewellery shop in Raniganj town. They got involved in a gunfight with the police when a team of officers arrived at the spot and tried to intercept them. CCTV footage showed that one of the robbers suffered a bullet injury in the encounter, but all of them managed to escape on three motorcycles.

While escaping, the robbers intercepted a private car at gunpoint in Asansol, 12-km away from Raniganj, and forced the owner-driver to get off. When car owner Nayan Dutta refused, he was dragged out and shot in the leg. Dutta was admitted to Asansol district hospital by his wife and local people after the robbers fled.