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18-month jail terms for jewellery shop robbers from Pakistan
View(s):Two Pakistanis, who posed off as Indians and robbed gems and jewellery to the value of more than Rs. 10 million from a shop in Kollupitiya, have each been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. They were also fined Rs. 1,500 each by the Fort Magistrate.
The suspects were arrested by the Kollupitiya police a day after the robbery in December last year.The two men had visited the shop claiming they wanted to buy a bracelet for their niece in India who would be getting married soon, Inspector Y.T. Kulatillake said. After placing the order, they left the shop, saying they would pay for it the following day.
The inspector said the culprits had come the following day and waited outside till the jewellery shop owner’s two sons had left the shop and the owner was alone. They had then gone into the shop and held a chemical substance to the owner’s nose till he fell unconscious. They later dragged him to a room before they got away with gems and jewellery items worth more than Rs. 10 million.
The police checked the footage of CCTV cameras in the neighbourhood the same day following a complaint and arrested one of the suspects at a spa the following day and the other in the hotel they were staying. They had sold some of the gold jewellery to a shop at Sea Street for Rs. 500,000 and gone to a casino and kept the unsold gems and jewellery items hidden in the toilet cistern.