Surat: Singanpor police booked four persons, including the three owners of a privately operated vault and a helper, for criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy after 206 tolas of gold, worth Rs 2.67 crore, went missing.The accused have been identified as Harsh Diyora, his brother Harikrishna Diyora, their father Mahesh Diyora, and Manilal, a lock-breaking expert who allegedly helped open lockers.The case came to light after a builder, Ramesh Jivraj Vaghani, lodged a complaint with Singanpor police. He had been renting a locker at Nakshatra Safe Vault since 2020, paying an annual rent of Rs 1,700. He had stored 63 tolas of gold jewellery worth Rs 81.90 lakh there.On July 11, Vaghani’s family came to the vault to take out jewellery for a family function but discovered that the ornaments were missing. When they sought to examine the CCTV footage, Harsh Diyora allegedly refused to allow them to view the recordings beyond a certain point and behaved aggressively. He said that the CCTV backup hard disk was not functioning.After the complaint was filed, police launched an investigation and found that five other customers had also reported gold going missing from their lockers. The victims were Chirag Goti (62 tolas), Rajesh Pipaliya (49 tolas), Utsav Savani (16 tolas), Jitendra Balar (13 tolas). and Ramesh Savji Vaghani (three tolas)In all, 206 tolas of gold belonging to six persons, worth Rs 2.67 crore, was missing.During preliminary inquiries, police found that Manilal allegedly helped the Diyora family open the lockers and steal the jewellery. As news of the alleged theft spread, several other customers rushed to the vault and withdrew their valuables.Police said further investigation is underway.
