Rs 14-cr heist: Witness turns hostile

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 20

In a blow to the prosecution in the Rs 14-crore fake heist case at Sector 17 jewellery showroom, witness Hitesh Arora today turned hostile in a local court.

In the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Akshdeep Mahajan, Arora, who owns Siddharth Jewellers at Sector 37, denied to have provided any fake bills to the accused and co-owner of the shop, Rajneesh Verma and Vinod Verma.

“I had given them a rough estimate of the jewellery they wanted to buy from my shop. The bill was given to them in my handwriting and no fake bill in back date was given,” he deposed before the court.

On the other hand, as per police’s version, Arora had told them in May last year that Vinod had asked him to prepare a back dated bill worth Rs 2.5 crore of April 14. The owners of the jewellery shop were planning to shut business in the city to move overseas.

In this case, charges were framed against the two owners and three others for stage-managing a robbery at Forever Diamonds, Sector 17, last year.

Besides owners, Vaibhav Verma, a resident of Sector 49, Ankur Jolly, a resident of Zirakpur, and Shivani, a sales girl at the shop, were named in the FIR.

It was May 1, 2016, the owners had complained that three robbers, including a woman, walked into the store in the afternoon and looted jewellery worth around Rs 14 crore at gunpoint. The police found chinks in the version of the store owners, following which their alleged lie was nailed.

The co-owners were booked by the police under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 201, 120-B of the IPC after the police probe found the robbery took place at the shop was concocted by the owners to claim insurance amount money. Two days later, three others were arrested.