Dagger was stolen three days ago from a prominent museum in Delhi
New Delhi: A gold-plated dagger gifted to Jawaharlal Nehru by the Saudi King in 1954 was on Thursday recovered by Delhi Police, three days after it was stolen from a prominent museum in the national capital.
The police had registered a case of theft and house-breaking in connection with the matter and two persons, Ram Chander (32) and Sandeep Kumar (30), both employed as housekeeping staff at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library here, have been arrested, Delhi Police chief spokesperson Taj Hassan said. The 26-centimetre-long dagger has been recovered and handed over to the museum authorities. The incident came to light on Monday, the day the museum is closed for general public, when the staff found a casket in the gift room of the museum broken and the dagger, stored inside it as an exhibit, missing.
A glass pane on the door leading to the gift room was also found broken. There were no CCTV cameras installed in or around the gift room due to which identity of the perpetrator could not be ascertained at first, a senior official said.
The museum authorities called up police and conducted a thorough check of the premises and later the case was registered at Chanakyapuri Police Station in New Delhi.
When the Crime Branch of Delhi Police intervened into the matter yesterday and conducted an inspection of the gift room, they recreated the scene of crime and it emerged that the glass pane on the left side of the door was broken by the accused to open the latch, the official said. Also the impact of the attack on the wooden frame of the shattered casket had an inclination from left to right, suggesting that the perpetrators were left-handed.
After questioning around a hundred staff members at the museum, police zeroed in on housekeeping staff Ram Chander, who was ambidextrous. Chander could use his left hand with the same ease as his right one, the official said. During interrogation, he broke down and confessed to have committed the crime.-PTI
