GHAZIABAD: A 30-year-old man, whose mother is an excise inspector in Muzaffarnagar, was the mastermind behind the Sahibabad jewellery store heist on November 14. The main accused, Aarush Malik , was arrested along with three accomplices by Ghaziabad police on Monday.Police said the entire robbery plan had been hatched by Malik in Dasna jail along with one Manoj Pandey (35), who was serving a term for a kidnapping case in Loni in 2014. Aarush met Pandey after he was arrested and sent to Dasna jail following the robbery of Rawalpindi Jewellers in Express Green Market of Indirapuram in April 2016.Aarush, a graduate, had been "disowned" by his widowed mother in 2014 soon after he was found involved in a Rs 3 crore robbery in Geeta Colony in Delhi. "Aarush has confessed to have hatched the robbery plan because he needed money to meet medical expenses of his ailing daughter, a fact that is being cross-checked. He lived in Sector 3 of Rajendra Nagar in Sahibabad and had conducted several recces of the shop himself. So far, we have found his involvement in six criminal cases including the robbery in Geeta Colony of Delhi. Aarush and Pandey are out on bail. Aarush had roped in a maternal cousin Yogendra and another accomplice Vineet for the robbery. A fifth accomplice Neeraj Pandit is on the run," said UP Police additional director-general (Meerut Zone) Prashant Kumar.According to police, Yogendra (24), a diploma engineer working as a sales agent with a real estate firm in Gurugram, had joined Aarush simply because he wanted to make a quick buck. Vineet (22), had just landed himself a job with a security agency in Noida, but was convinced by Aarush to join the robbery. Manoj lived in Azadpur Mandi area of Delhi while Vineet and Yogendra lived in Bulandshahr and Amroha, respectively.Police said Aarush had noticed the iron chest of the jewellery store lying open during one of his recces. On November 14, Aarush along with four accomplices, had barged into Prem Shree Jewellers in Sahibabad with masks over their faces and decamped with two bags of jewellery after taking the staff hostage at gunpoint. The state government had shunted out the then SSP Vaibhav Krishna from Ghaziabad barely a few hours after the robbery incident. The store proprietor Manish Verma had initially alleged that the robbery was worth Rs 2 crore. However, in a detailed estimate submitted to police a few days later he had put the total cost of robbed items at Rs 1.22 crore.“We have recovered Rs 3.48 lakh cash, accumulated by the men from sale of some of the robbed jewellery items. We have also recovered a few other jewellery items with price tags upon them which add up to another Rs 4.6 lakh. Besides, we have recovered several units of precious stones, ornaments and silver jewellery. There are stones resembling American diamonds too. The cost of these items will be evaluated by examination through an authorized agency,” said Kumar.

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