The arrested persons are Cheluvaraj aka Nataraj, a 30-year-old resident of Rajarajeshwari Layout and a native of Mysuru. Another person named Sudhnashu Nayak was arrested who lives in Sampangiramanagar and a native of Odisha.
Nataraj is a mini goods driver while Sudanshu is a courier boy. Srinivas Gowda, deputy commissioner of Police (central) formed a team headed by sub-inspector Bheemsen Ghatage for investigation, and they arrested the duo.
The theft happened on April 15 when the bags were being transported to KIA. Ananda Agarwala, the manager of Xpress Freight Solutions had the booking to transport the goods from Delhi Capitals logistics in charge Arvind Negi.
He instructed his colleague in Bengaluru named Dinesh to complete the work. Dinesh, along with Sudhanshu, went to the hotel along with two mini goods carrying vehicles. They loaded 39 bags in Nataraj’s vehicle, and another 25 in a vehicle driven by Abhishek.
Cheluvaraj stolen the equipment from the bags and kept it in a different bag. He hid the bag behind a compound wall of a building. After transporting the bags to courier at the KIA, he came back to the spot and took the bag to his house.
As the duo were nabbed, both claim that they wanted to use the equipment for their own use. Sudhanshu confessed to stealing a bat from one of the kits. While Nataraj aka Cheluvaraj confessed to have stolen 11 bats, 18 balls, four pair of hand gloves, two helmets, three pair of leg pads, a centre guard, two thigh pads and a bag.
The total value of the stolen items is around INR 16 Lakh. And both the thieves have stated they didn’t have any intention to sell the items.
According to police, they have recovered around 70 per cent of the items. They could recover 11 stolen bats from Cheluvaraj and one from Sudhanshu. Delhi Capitals lodged a complaint of losing 17 bats in total.
The stolen materials were mainly of six players of the Delhi Capitals squad. David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Phil Salt, Yash Dhull and two other players.
