Kochi: Two engineering students have been arrested for stealing a puppy worth Rs 15,000 from a pet shop in Kochi.

The arrested are Nikhil and Shreya, natives of Udupi in Karnataka.

The police have also recovered the pup from them.

The duo were arrested from their residence in Udupi. They reached Kochi on a bike, stole the dog and went back, police stated.

The strange theft took place on Saturday at 7 pm. They reached the pet shop at Nettur by bike on the pretext of selling a cat. When the store employee's attention was diverted, the young woman took the caged puppy and placed it in Nikhil's helmet.

The stolen pup was one of the three the shopowner had recently bought from Edappally. Two of them were brought to the shop on Saturday for selling it to an Alappuzha native who had booked them. The theft came to light when the Alappuzha client arrived to buy the puppy. As one pup was missing the owner checked the CCTV records of the shop.

In a bid to trace the thieves the shopowner checked other CCTV footage on the likely path Nikhil and Shreya took and found that they also stole dog food from another shop at Vyttila. Soon, the shopkeeper lodged a complaint with the Panangad police.