New Delhi:
Seeking an expert's opinion can sometimes prove costly. In Chiranjeet Singh's case, the expenses amounted to 70 lakh rupees.
The "expert" in this case happened to be Ravi Raj, who has a jewellery shop in Karol Bagh's Vishnu Complex. When on Tuesday he was approached by Charanjeet Singh, with a bag full of valuable diamonds, Raj realised that this was the perfect opportunity to lend his expertise.
Chiranjeet Singh works for the Kanpur-based Siddharth Export Company that has its office inside Hotel Ashoka in New Delhi.
He was supposed to export a consignment of diamonds and wanted to get the gems verified by an expert. He was told by someone that Ravi Raj was an expert on precious stones. Thus Singh reached Raj's shop at around six in the evening.
Raj took the gems in his possession and told Singh, after an initial examination, that there might be some problem with the diamonds and he had to do an exhaustive test on them.
After waiting for about an hour, Singh was tempted to savour the delicious snacks that the central Delhi market offers.
He told Raj that he would be back in a while and left the shop for a nearby restaurant to have some snacks.
But when Singh returned after some time, he found Raj missing from his seat. Not alarmed initially, Singh thought Raj must have gone somewhere close and would return soon.
The diamonds were also missing. When after waiting for a long while, Raj did not return, Singh smelt trouble and started asking around about the jeweller from nearby shopkeepers. When nobody managed to come up with any satisfactory replies, Singh finally decided it was time to approach the police.
The police reached the scene and gathered as much information as possible about Raj and have subsequently launched a manhunt to nab him.
A police officer attached to the Karol Bagh police station confirmed that an FIR had been registered in the case and they were trying to gather more information about the fraud jeweller.