Borivali Jain temple robbery case solved with arrest of 8

The city police today claimed to have cracked the Jain temple loot and murder case with the arrest of eight robbers and seized entire booty worth over Rs4.50 lakh stolen by them.

The accused Harun Shaikh, Ramesh Patil, Santosh Bhoir, Rajguru Singh were arrested from suburban Goregaon while the other four culprits Suresh Gupta, Vinod Kumar Yadav, Michael Thapa and Mukesh Kumar Yadav were apprehended from Navi Mumbai, the police said.

In the wee hours of August 22, the accused had plundered the Nandishwar Digambar Jain temple in suburban Borivli before murdering watchman Devi Singh, who tried to nab them, police said. Another watchman Rajesh Joshi was severely injured in the attack.

The robbers had escaped with six panchdhatu (mixture of five metals) and 22 silver umbrellas and other valuables collectively worth over Rs4.50 lakh.

The accused Shaikh and Patil had conspired to rob the temple two years ago when they were in jail and were waiting for an opportunity to strike at the temple for the last one month, joint police commissioner (crime) Himanshu Roy said.

"We have recovered the entire booty. When the temple was started in 2005, grand programmes were held and flowers and silver coins were showered from the helicopter on the top of the temple," Roy said.

"Since then the duo had plans of stealing the valuables. In 2008, the duo hatched the conspiracy in the jail to loot the temple. A former watchman had also provided information to the accused," he added.

"The description given by an eye witness Pappu about the accused had helped them cracking the case," he said adding that the eight would be produced before a local court tomorrow.