Kallara robbery: Five more held

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The police have nabbed five persons allegedly involved in the robbery at a jewellery shop after murdering the security guard of the shop. The accused were identified as Dileesh Kumar alias Kuttan, 28, of Punaloor; Karunakaran alias Kannan, 35, of Kadaloor in Tamil Nadu; Nawas alias Mondi Nawas, 39, of Chadayamangalam; Shiyas alias Sajumon, 25, of Kottarakkara and Rameshan Pillai, 28, of Kadakkal.  The incident had occurred at Jaseena Jewellers located at Kallara on the outskirts of the city two months ago. The culprits had also murdered the security guard of the shop, Raveendran Nair, whose body was recovered from an abandoned well inside a school campus in the locality.  According to the police, the gang, headed by Karunakaran alias Kannan, had committed several similar robberies before. Among the arrested, Dileesh Kumar was an accused in several spirit smuggling cases in the State. The entire robbery was planned and executed by Dileesh Kumar, his brother Sasi Kumar and Kannan. Sasi Kumar was later found dead in a lodge in Goa, which was confirmed by the police as suicide. The accused, who were on the run post the robbery, constantly changed their location. They lived in hiding in different states, including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, in order to evade  arrest. They were captured by the investigation team at the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.  The police had earlier arrested four persons, Deepak Raj, Pramith, Rajasekharan and Palani, who had helped the accused to dispose of a portion of the looted ornaments. The police had recovered some of the loot which was buried under the ground in the courtyard of a rented house where Dileesh Kumar’s sister Divya and husband Ranjith lived. The latter were also booked by the police for assisting the robbery by providing the robbers SIM cards bought by producing fake identity proofs.  The investigation team was divided into five groups, each headed by Circle Inspectors V Sugathan, Sreekumar, R Prathapan, Suresh Kumar and Pradeep Kumar and supervised by Attingal DySP K E Baiju.