New Delhi, Jan 23 (PTI) A 47-year-old jeweller was arrested along with his employee and a ragpicker for allegedly staging a theft and lodging a fake case, police said on Saturday.

The case was reported on January 16 by jeweller Mukesh Verma, a resident of Sector-3 in Rohini, they said.

Verma staged the theft along with his employee Sunny (31) and Suraj (20) to buy time to return borrowed money and gain the sympathy of his lenders, police said.

He also wanted to prove his wife, who had given him a ring to wear to turn around his fortunes, wrong, a senior officer said.

On January 16 at 9:35 pm, police received information regarding a theft of bags containing 650 grams of gold jewellery, Rs 8 lakh and some keys from a car.

Verma had told police that around 9:10 pm, he had parked his car after reaching home and as he was in a hurry, he forgot to lock it, the officer said.

After sometime, when he came back to his car he found that the bags along with some keys had been stolen, he said.

During investigation, police checked CCTV camera footage and found Sunny's activities to be suspicious, police said.

"Sunny was questioned and he admitted that Verma, along with him and the ragpicker, had staged the theft. Sunny said that Verma wanted to gain the sympathy of persons from whom he had borrowed money and seek more time to return it," Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Rohini, P K Mishra said.

Sunny had kept empty bags in the car and as per Verma's plan, Suraj opened the front door of the car and fled away with the bags. Suraj had been promised Rs 700 for the job, he said.

Verma told police that he was under stress as he had borrowed money from people and was constantly being asked to pay it back, the DCP said.

In order to delay payments, he hatched the plan, executed it and lodged a complaint, Mishra said.

Through this fake theft, he also wanted to prove that the loss happened after wearing the ring, police said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)