Kasaragod gold merchants to move HC against K'taka Police's indiscriminate 'recovery raids'

Kasaragod: Gold jewellery merchants in Kasaragod are planning to approach the Kerala High Court, seeking protection from Karnataka Police's "indiscriminate raids" to recover stolen goods, "conducted solely based on FIRs and without any confession from the accused".

The Kasaragod District Committee of the All Kerala Gold and Silver Merchants Association (AKGSMA) said Karnataka police were overreaching their mandate and harassing gold traders in the name of recovery.

"As traders, we have no way to verify whether gold jewellery brought in by customers is stolen or legitimately owned," said SJ Ashokan Nair, general secretary of AKGSMA's Kasaragod unit. He said that people coming in with old jewellery often prefer new jewellery in exchange rather than cash. "But the police show interest in going after the jewellery bought from us," he said.

AKGSMA district president KA Abdul Kareem said the police often visit jewellery shops months after such exchanges, claim the gold is stolen, and pressure traders to return it. Those who refuse are made co-accused in the crime and threatened with arrest.

The jewellery merchants have come out in public against the backdrop of Kerala Police -- investigating the murder of NRI businessman MC Gafoor (53) -- started recovering gold from jewellery shops allegedly stolen by a four-member black magic gang led by Shameema KH (38), popularly known as 'Jinnumma'.

The association, however, made it clear that the Kerala Police would often play by the books, unlike the Karnataka Police. However, the two police forces would not hesitate to charge jewellery merchants with the crime concerned if they refused to part with the gold they were demanding, said the association.

Kasaragod has around 150 jewellery shops affiliated with the AKGSMA.

According to the merchants, around 80 shops in Uppala, Kumbla, and Kasaragod are vulnerable to recovery raids by the Karnataka police. 

Nair said that in the past four years, Karnataka police have raided these shops at least 15 times. He said that in the past six months, the Karnataka Police raided jewellery shops at Uppala three times.

Nair runs Sumangali Jewellers -- one at Bandadka in Kuttikol grama panchayat and another at Kundamkuzhy in Bedadka grama panchayat in Kasaragod district. Both the shops were burgled in 2017 and 2016, and 950gm of gold jewellery and 9.5kg of silver jewellery were stolen. "I did not get back anything," he said.

How jewellery thieves operate
According to gold merchants in Kasaragod, jewellery thieves often approach them not to sell stolen items directly but to exchange them for new jewellery. "They usually bring 5 to 10 grams for exchange," said Nair. 

The merchants deduct a 2 per cent margin, apply making charges, and add a 3 er cent tax on the new jewellery. "With the new jewellery and legitimate bills, they confidently sell in shops in Mangaluru," he said. 

Merchants also claim thieves sell a small portion of their stolen stash to reputable jewellery shops to create a paper trail, ensuring they can cite these transactions if caught. 

However, they said the bulk of the stolen gold is sold to "mobile gold merchants. "Every day, newspapers carry classified ads from buyers of old gold. These people operate without shops, conducting business through phones," said one merchant. He said the ads feature disposable numbers that are active only for a few days.

"The thieves avoid naming these buyers, and even if they do, tracing them is nearly impossible as they use burner phones," he said.

These mobile merchants deceive sellers during the weighing and melt down of 22-carat jewellery to extract 24-carat pure gold and then sell it in Mumbai and Mangaluru, where gold prices are higher, explained the merchant. "That's how they make their profit," he said.

'How Karnataka police operate'
Armed with nothing more than an FIR, Karnataka police frequently knock on the doors of jewellery shops in Kasaragod, claimed the AKGSMA. "They don't present the confessional statement of the accused so we can verify if our shop was named," said Nair.

Sometimes, the police would park in front of the jewellery shops and nudge the accused to point towards the shops. "If 80 grams of gold is stolen, they would visit multiple shops in Kasaragod using the same FIR, extracting as much gold as possible," said the AKGSMA. "The excess gold is melted down and unlawfully documented as evidence in unrelated theft cases back in Karnataka," alleged the association.

Recently, Karnataka police reportedly demanded several kilograms of gold from a small jewellery shop in Uppala, alleging thieves had handed over their stolen haul to the shop owner in a vehicle somewhere far from the shop, according to Kasaragod merchants. "These claims are absurd and entirely unsupported by evidence," said one merchant.

Kerala Police would at least show the confessional statement if the merchants demanded it, the association said.

The legal recourse
The AKGSMA said they are working towards one nation, one gold price. "If that is successful, the margin play of the mobile merchants will come down," said a jewellery owner.

The association said it is also planning to approach the Karnataka Lokayukta to develop specific guidelines for police to follow when recovering stolen goods. It said they should at least inform the local police about their arrival.

In the high court, the jewellery merchant association would seek three key reforms: First, gold merchants should not be treated as accomplices or arrested for refusing to hand over gold; second, police must produce the confessional statements of the accused; and third, police should include the newly exchanged jewellery as evidence, not just the old jewellery handed over by the accused. "Ultimately, the police are seizing gold of equivalent weight from our shops, not the original stolen items," said Nair.