A seasoned criminal, Nathuram’s overconfidence was his undoing

Nathuram had been targeting Mukesh Kumar, the owner of Sri Mahalakshmi Jewellery in Kolathur for quite some time now. Both belonged to same district of Pali in Rajasthan and Mukesh caught Nathuram’s attention because he used to spend lavishly at local festivals in his village. Nathuram assumed Mukesh was very rich and he began doing background checks on him. He put a person named Bhaktharam from Rajasthan, who was settled in Chennai for years, on the job.

It was Bhaktharam who surveyed Mukesh Kumar’s shop and residence and informed Nathuram. They both made an elaborate plan to loot the shop. “After visiting his target’s location in Kolathur, he asked Bhaktharam, who is well versed in Tamil, to talk to the builder and rent the first floor of the building, just above the jewellery shop, to ‘set up a cloth show room’,” said the police. 

Bhaktharam negotiated with the builder and got the place. On November 16, 2017, when Mukesh Kumar went home for lunch after closing his shop, Nathuram drilled a hole on the shop floor. He and another accomplice, Dinesh Choudhry, entered the jewellery shop through the roof and robbed 3.5 kg of gold, silver articles and Rs 2 lakh in cash. While they two emptied the shop, Bhaktharam roamed around Mukesh Kumar’s house to keep track of his movements. 

Nathuram sold some part of the loot in Sowcarpet itself, and another portion in Bengaluru before going to his native village. He had big political ambitions and hoped his community would help him if he accumulated wealth. He told investigators that he first started stealing at age 15 when he flicked sarees at a textile shop in Surat. 

Nathuram has cases against him in six states, including Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. In 2014, he had robbed a cell phone shop in Madhavaram. His associates pretended to set up a cut-out of a politician in front the shop at night, while Nathuram broke the shutter and went inside and stole cell phones. He was caught in that case, and in another case where he stole 8 kgs of gold in Bengaluru. According to the police, whenever Nathuram was caught, he always confessed to the crime. But by the time the police found him, he had spent his ill-gotten gains.

Nathuram’s overconfidence finally proved to be his undoing when he posted a selfie holding a gun on Facebook. Seeing his picture, the Rajasthan police tracked him down and arrested him in Gujarat on January 13, on charges of theft and attacking the Chennai police team in Pali during a botched-up operation in which inspector Periyapandian was shot dead in reported accidental firing by fellow inspector Munisekhar.