The Punjagutta police cracked the sensational Lalithaa Jewellery robbery case on Monday, with the arrest of a pair of young lovebirds, Karimullah and Vani of Nandigama, in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.

The police revealed that the couple had mortgaged the items they had stolen to a finance company in their hometown. A special team has been sent to recover the stolen jewellery.

The duo migrated to Hyderabad in October this year, to try and make a living here. They were residents of Sindhi Colony in Secunderabad here, staying in separate men's and ladies hostels. Even as they were looking out for jobs, they fell to the lure of making easy money to lead a 'good' life and homed in on Lalithaa Jewellery in Somajiguda as their potential target for a heist.

As planned, they reached the showroom at 1.40pm last Monday and after diverting the attention of the salesman made good with two gold bangles and a bracelet.

It was only at night at the time of closing the shop that the theft came to light during the course of stocktaking. After a thorough internal audit and verification of cctv surveillance footage, the management realized that 66 gms worth jewellery had been stolen and lodged a complaint with the Punjagutta police. The cops swung into action, identified the offenders after going through the footage and launched an investigation.

Karimullah confessed that he had pledged the items of jewellery with the Muthoot Finance company in his hometown, following which a special team reached Nandigama.

Meanwhile, the first heist in the Kothi showroom of the same group carried out by two burqa-clad women, who swapped artificial gold with some ornaments, has hit a dead-end, with some malfunctioning cctv cameras hampering police investigation. However, the probe is being conducted covering several angles related to the robbery.