Delhi Police nab suspect behind ‘kalash’ theft from Red Fort’s Jain festival

The gold urn weighed about 760 grams and was studded with gems weighing 115 grams, and worth over ₹1 crore.

Five days after a golden ‘kalash’ (urn) was stolen during a religious ceremony at the Red Fort, the Delhi Police on Monday arrested the alleged thief in connection with the incident.

The theft was captured on CCTV. (Photo from X)

Special commissioner of police (crime) Devesh Srivastava said the accused, identified as Bhushan Verma, was arrested by a crime branch team from Hapur in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

The golden ‘kalash’ — studded with diamonds, rubies and emeralds and worth over ₹1 crore — was allegedly stolen from outside the Red Fort where a religious festival of the Jain community was underway on Wednesday. Officers said that the suspect posed as a person from the community, according to the CCTV footage procured by the police.

The gold urn weighed about 760 grams and was studded with gems weighing 115 grams. The incident happened when the crowd was distracted for about an hour when Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was visiting.

Deputy commissioner of police (North) Raja Banthia said a case of theft, under section 303 (2) (Punishment for theft) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), has been registered.

The complainant in the case, 66-year-old Sudhir Kumar Jain, a businessman and resident of Civil Lines, said a 10-day religious festival was underway at the park — the location where the grand Ram Leela also takes place every year. The festival began on August 28 and concluded on Saturday.

A stage was set up for the ceremonies, where only permitted individuals dressed in dhoti-kurta were allowed to sit. Jain brought the urn from home every day for the prayers.

He said that the urn was kept close to him on the stage till about 9.20am on Wednesday. “I took the urn to the venue for prayers every day and brought it back. It has been in our family since my father’s time. On Wednesday, the urn was right there but when Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla came, we all looked at him and stayed engaged for the next hour,” Jain told HT.

When Jain started to wrap up around 10.20am, he realised that the urn was gone, following which he registered an e-FIR on Wednesday.

In the CCTV footage at the venue seen by HT, the suspect was seen walking from the prayer venue to the kitchen area, where he kept the urn in a green and black coloured cloth bag before walking away with it from the venue.