The police have arrested the thief who robbed 36 sovereigns of jewelry in Katpadi. It has been found that he used the stolen money to buy new jewelry for his lover-wife and roamed around in a luxury car.
Compliments are pouring in for the Katpadi police who tracked down the thief.
Maria, a retired teacher from the Christianpet area of Katpadi in Vellore district, is the wife of former Dell employee Ravikumar. The two had locked their house and gone to a relative’s house on the 27th.
That night, when they returned home and checked, they found that the house doors had been broken open and 36 sovereigns of jewelry kept in the cupboards in the three rooms inside the house had been stolen, and they filed a complaint with the Katpadi police.
After receiving the complaint, the police began investigating the matter by examining CCTV footage from various places and collecting information about known criminals.
When a husband and wife were caught and questioned after suspiciously roaming around in a car in the Katpadi Dell hill area, the police found that the man was Muthuvel Karthik, son of Balakrishnan from the Sevvapatti Kariyapatti area of Virudhunagar, and that his wife was 30-year-old Prabhavathi.
The husband and wife were brought to the Katpadi police station, where they confessed to the police who questioned them that they were the ones who had stolen the jewelry.
Following this, when they questioned him further, the police found that Muthuvel Karthik was already a history-sheeter and that there were more than nine theft and robbery cases against him in various areas including Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram, and Madurai.
During further investigation, he also admitted that he had pawned the stolen jewelry at various jewelry shops in areas including Arakkonam and Tiruttani in Ranipet district, and that he had exchanged old jewelry and bought new jewelry for his wife.
He also admitted that with the money obtained by selling the stolen jewelry, he bought a luxury car worth ten lakh rupees and went around enjoying himself with his wife and children.
When further questioned, he said that, to avoid getting caught if they stole locally, they had made it a habit of staying in different towns at different times by posing as IT employees and renting houses. In this way, they stayed in the Chittoor area and from there surveyed isolated houses in Christianpetta, a border area between Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. While doing so, they learned that the couple Maria and Ravikumar had gone out of town by car and would not be back anytime soon, and after 3 p.m. they broke the house lock and stole the jewelry and cash inside.
Based on his admission that he sold the stolen jewelry and bought new jewelry for his beloved wife, and that he used the money to buy a luxury car and roam around enjoying himself, they recovered all 26 sovereigns of jewelry that had been pledged and sold in the Chittoor, Arakkonam, and Tiruvallur areas.
The arrested husband and wife were both sent to judicial custody.