The accused have been identified as Shivani (28) of Amar Avenue in Khandwala Chheharta and her fiancé Gurtek Singh (23) of Ajnala besides their accomplices Gurpreet Singh (34) of Majitha road (Amritsar), Sandeep Singh (29) of Jandiala, Deepak Kumar (30) of Mahal village, Hardev Singh (53) of Ajnala and Harpal Singh (52) of Rajasansi. Shivani is the daughter of Narinder Mohan Mehta, who works as a driver with victim Jiya Lal Behal. She knew about the victim’s affluence.

The robbery took place on early Wednesday morning when four armed men with their faces covered decamped with ₹90 lakh and 3-kg jewellery after barging into the house of Jiya Lal.

DGP Yadav said Gurpreet, Sandeep and Deepak were arrested from Dhule district in Maharashtra with the assistance of the Maharashtra Police and central agencies while the remaining four persons were arrested from Amritsar. ₹41.40 lakh and 800-gm gold have been seized, he said, adding that further investigation was being carried out in this case.

Commissioner of Police (CP) Ranjit Singh Dhillon said teams from the Civil Lines police station, CIA-1 and CIA-2 under the supervision of ADCP (City-2) Abhimanyu Rana and ACP (north) Vijay Kumar had started the investigation immediately after the robbery. He said the case was cracked in less than 12 hours and three persons were arrested from Maharashtra within 24 hours while the remaining four were caught on Friday and Saturday.

Dhillon said that two more accomplices involved in this case were identified and raids were being conducted to apprehend them.

The case was registered on June 26 under Section 394 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 25 of the Arms Act at the Civil Lines police station.

In a separate case, a “hawala operator”, Kheta Ram, of New Delhi has been nabbed with ₹55 lakh. Hailing from Rajasthan, he has been into ‘angadia’ business for the past 14 years, said Dhillon in a press conference.