Palakkad: The criminal gang which made away with gold worth Rs 1 crore at Coimbatore may be linked to highway robber ‘Kodali’ Sreedharan. A police team led by the Coimbatore superintendent of police has launched a manhunt in Kerala for Sreedharan’s sidekick who hails from Vallamburam near Malappuram.
The robbers targeted an SUV that belonged to Kalyan Jewellers between Coimbatore and Walayar on Monday afternoon. They rammed their vehicle to the SUV near a petrol pump at Chavadi and chased away the jewellery staff. The assailants then drove the SUV away with the gold.
The police are believed to have received valuable leads after inspecting the CCTV footage of the Walayar check post. They have identified Shamsuddeen aka Nani, a key member of the gang which is known to target hawala operators carrying large amounts of money across state borders.
The stolen SUV was later recovered from Karuppankarai near Coimbatore. Sreedharan and his accomplices had abandoned their earlier targets in the same area. Sreedharan faces a slew of robbery cases in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
