Superintendent of Police S. Selvanagarathinam (sporting a beret cap) and his colleagues displaying the jewellery recovered from the accused in the Samayapuram dacoity case in Tiruchi on Friday.
| Photo Credit: M. MOORTHY
The Tiruchi district police on Friday announced a breakthrough in the case pertaining to dacoity of nearly 10 kg of gold jewellery by a gang from a car at Samayapuram on the night of September 13 by arresting all the 12 accused, including a woman.
The arrested are all north Indians with four or five of them having stayed temporarily in Chennai, said Tiruchi Superintendent of Police S. Selvanagarathinam. The Samayapuram police had registered a case.
Mr. Selvanagarathinam said five special teams constituted to probe the dacoity case had recovered stolen gold jewellery and gold biscuits weighing 9.68 kg besides confiscating ₹6.05 lakh cash, a car, a country made pistol with two bullets, seven smart phones, 40 SIM cards, and jewellery tags among others.
Two persons — S. Gunawanth and D. Mahesh — working in a Chennai-based jewellery outlet were heading back to that city with the remaining gold jewellery weighing around 10 kg after selling the valuables to retail sellers in Erode, Coimbatore, Madurai, and Dindigul district when they stopped the vehicle near Samayapuram toll plaza to answer nature’s call in a desolate spot on Tiruchi-Chennai highway. Pradeep Jat, 24, of Rajasthan, was the driver of the car.
A gang of four or five, which followed them in another car, took away the jewellery after spraying chilli powder on Gunawanth and Mahesh. The special teams, after examining the CCTV footage at the toll plazas and a detailed probe, found that the car had a fake registration number. The owner of the car belongs to Rajasthan.
Special teams visited Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar in search of the accused after it came to light that the culprits were from outside Tamil Nadu. The main accused in the case was Pradeep Jat, who joined the jewellery outlet a few months ago. The accused were tipped off by Pradeep about the movement of the vehicle carrying gold jewellery. His friends Hanuman and Kailash stayed in Chennai and coordinated with the other accused.
The special teams examined the call detail records of several phone numbers and the route taken by the culprits via Karnataka and analysed the CCTV footage from six States. Investigations and sustained efforts by special teams for over three weeks with the support of police of other States led to the arrest of 12 accused who were scattered in Chennai, Mumbai, and Madhya Pradesh, the SP said.
Investigations revealed that some gold jewellery was melted in Mumbai and some was sold. The recovery rate in this case was 97%, one of the highest in such cases, the SP said. Efforts would be made to file the chargesheet quickly in the case, he added.
The names of the arrested were given as Pradeep Jat, Manohar Ram, Pannaram Devasi alias Vinod, Sohail Khan alias Mohamed Sohail, Kailash, Hanuman Jat, Manish alias Manish Sirohi, Mangilal, Vkram Jat, Bharat Ram, Rakesh, and Lakshmi Devi.
Published – October 10, 2025 06:57 pm IST
