Owner of jewellery shop arrested for 'concocted' loot story

Chandigarh: One of the two owners of a jewellery shop here, who claimed of being looted of Rs 14 crore, was today arrested for concocting the story allegedly to claim insurance money, police said.

"We have arrested Vinod Verma, one of the owners of the jewellery shop in Sector 17, while the other owner Rajnish is evading arrest," station house officer Uday Pal Singh said.

He said earlier both the owners were booked following a "confessional statement" of the store manager.

A case under various sections of IPC including 420 (cheating), 466 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence), among others have been registered against the accused, he said.

Two days back, Chandigarh police had claimed that shop owners, Vinod Verma and Rajnish Verma, had concocted the robbery story to claim insurance amount of Rs 10 crore.

On the basis of fresh evidence which had come to fore in the case, the police had removed sections of robbery from the FIR and added fresh sections like cheating and forgery.

The shop owners had earlier told the police that they were at the shop along with an employee Ajay when the robbers arrived.