Cops crack Cuttack heist; recover stolen cash, gold

The Commissionerate of Police today cracked last month's Cuttack robbery case in the house of a retired High Court judge after arresting six persons in this connection and recovering parts of the stolen cash and gold.
Admitting that it was a very challenging case, city Police Commissioner R P Sharma said Rs 7.05 lakh cash and 300 gm of melted gold were recovered from the dacoits, who were seasoned criminals from the Kendrapara district.
Denying an earlier claim that the dacoits never knew they were burgling the house of a retired judge, Sharma said the heist in Justice P K Mohanty's house was a pre-planned and the dacoits had conducted a recce of the locality three days before the incident.

Nine persons covering their faces had entered the house of Mohanty at Sector 11 of Abhinav Bidanasi in the early hours of May 30 and decamped with cash over Rs 11 lakh and an unsubstantial amount of gold jewellery after tying up the family members in a room.
The dacoits had escaped from the spot with Mohanty's car, which was later traced near Bhubaneswar.
The Police Commissioner said the case was detected while following the modus operandi of a similar incident that had taken place on May 22 in a village under neighbouring Salepur police station of Cuttack rural police.

"Investigating the Salepur dacoity case, we were able to track the main accused at Balasore, who was subsequently nabbed at Chandikhol.
"A team of over 30 policemen under six inspectors of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar were involved in this operation, which took about a week to make the breakthrough," Sharma said adding over 300 persons were questioned by the police in this connection.
Police were hopeful of arresting the remaining members of the gang and make some more seizures.