Hyderabad: A 32-year-old man was arrested in Hyderabad’s Chikkadpally area for staging a theft at his residence to maintain his lavish lifestyle, police said.
On February 9, Bhaskar Pramod Mula lodged a complaint with the Chikkadpally police station claiming that unidentified persons broke into his penthouse at Alekya Estate and stole gold and silver ornaments.
During the investigation, it was found that Mula, who has been unemployed for some time, is a BTech graduate and had gone to the United States for higher studies but discontinued and returned to India.
He stayed in Bengaluru for some time, where he allegedly took personal loans and used multiple credit cards to fund a lavish lifestyle.
From 2024, due to mounting debts, he started stealing gold and silver jewellery from his grandmother and other family members to maintain the opulence. He pledged the stolen ornaments at HDFC Bank, SBI and Muthoot Finance, and raised about Rs 4.6 lakh.
The revelation came when his elder brother’s marriage was fixed, and the family decided to use the grandmother’s gold ornaments for the wedding. Fearing he would be caught, Malu hatched a plan to stage a theft.
According to the police investigation, Malu created a scene of a break-in by hiding some ornaments in another block of the same apartment complex, disposing of empty boxes and a lock into a nala near the Musi River. He informed his family, following which the initial complaint was registered.
Police arrested Malu and recovered a gold chain, six gold bangles, two gold rings, a silver plate and two silver bowls, all worth Rs 12 lakh.
A First Information Report (FIR) under Sections 305(a) (theft), 238 (disappearance of evidence), 240 (providing false information), and 318(1) (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) has been registered.
