Surat: Varachha police have filed a complaint after a case came to light in which four employees working at the shops of a brother-in-law duo in Bombay Market had stolen sarees worth lakhs of rupees over two and a half years.

Prashant Sanghvi, a resident of Nova Shitalnath Apartment in Pal, runs a shop named Shankheshwar Trends in Bombay Market. He buys plain sarees from the market, gets them embroidered, and sells them. His brother-in-law, Abhishek Trevadia (resident of Swastik Residency, Pal), runs a similar business under the name Chakachak Creation in the same market.

On February 18, while Prashant was at home, he received a call from an unknown number around 10 PM. The caller, speaking in Hindi, said, “Your staff have been stealing sarees from your shop. I watch them every day! They have bought a house and a pickup van with the stolen money. If you continue doing business like this, you will end up on the streets—be careful!”

After the call, Prashant checked the shop’s CCTV footage and discovered that Bhairusinh Devisingh Rajput, a supervisor employed for 14 years, and Ashokkumar Kajodmal Garg, a packer working for eight years, had been turning off the CCTV for a few minutes in his absence. Similarly, Abhishek’s employees—Kesharsinh Mohansinh Rajput and Khushaldas Chauhan, who had been working there for 13 and 8 years, respectively—were also seen switching off the CCTV.

Upon reviewing CCTV footage from neighboring shops, Prashant found that during these blackouts, four other individuals were seen coordinating and handing over stolen goods. When confronted, the employees admitted to selling the stolen sarees in the market through their fifth accomplice, Khemraj Motilala Paliwal.

During questioning, the four employees confessed that they had been stealing sarees for the past two and a half years, taking advantage of CCTV blind spots when the owners were away. They stole sarees worth ₹14.70 lakh from Prashant’s shop, while ₹5.85 lakh worth of sarees were stolen from Abhishek Trevadia’s Chakachak Creation.

Following the complaint, Sub-Inspector V.D. Mali has registered two separate FIRs at Varachha police station regarding the theft of sarees worth ₹20.25 lakh from the two shops. Further investigation is underway. DeshGujarat