Daijiworld Media Network - Puttur (SP)

Puttur, Jul 29: Varadesh, son of Srivara Jewellers owner, Balakrishna Bhat, was arrested by a team of police personnel from here on Tuesday July 27. Varadesh happens to be an accused in the case in which thousands of customers were duped by not giving them gold jewellery in return for monthly installments paid by them. He was arrested from Kushalnagar in Kodagu district and brought to the town.

Srivara Jewellers had showrooms in Sullia and Puttur. Through agents, it had enrolled thousands of customers for its schemes from Puttur, Madikeri, Sullia and Bantwal taluks, and the amount of fraud is said to be around three crore rupees.

The police department had formed two teams, one led by town police inspector, Mahesh Prasad, and other by police sub-inspector, Abdul Khader, to arrest Balakrishna Bhat and Varadesh. The police personnel, who kept a close watch on the cell phone calls of Balakrishna Bhat and his son, after Balakrishna Bhat vacated his house in Sullia, closed the doors of his ventures, and fled with family members, found about the presence of one of these cell phones at Kushalnagar.

The policemen, during the checking of documents of the firm's shop in the town after breaking open its lock, had stumbled upon the cell phone numbers of Balakrishna and Varadesh, but the two did not use the phones for two weeks initially, creating problems for the police investigation.

The police have exuded confidence about finding out the whereabouts of Balakrishna Bhat soon. The above operation was conducted under the guidance of Dakshina Kannada district superintendent of police, Dr S D Sharanappa, and deputy superintendent of police, Bhaskar Rai.

Varadesh is likely to be produced in the court here on Wednesday. The police will be seeking police custody of Varadesh for making headway in their investigation. With his arrest, the hopes of customers, who had been cursing their fate at the sudden closure of the jewellery shops stated above, have been rekindled.