NELLORE: Panic gripped passengers of a Kaveri Travels sleeper bus after around 300 grams of gold jewellery worth Rs 40 lakh was allegedly stolen from a passenger's bag while the bus was travelling from Bengaluru to Vijayawada.
Vemuru Venkata Krishna and his wife Radha, who were travelling to Vijayawada to attend a wedding, discovered that their bag containing the jewellery was missing when the bus stopped at Rajupalem near Nellore to allow passengers to use the restrooms.
Venkata Krishna alerted Tanguturu police, who brought the bus to the police station and checked the passengers' bags in an attempt to trace the jewellery.
During the search, another passenger found the empty bag on a rear seat and handed it over to the couple. The passenger also raised suspicion over a fellow traveller who had got down at Chandragiri around 2.30 am while the couple were asleep.
According to the passenger, the suspect was the last person to board the bus and had been accommodated in a vacant berth. Police reportedly found that the mobile number given by him to the bus crew was not working, further raising suspicion.
As the theft was noticed at Rajupalem, which falls under Kodavalur police station limits, Tanguturu police registered a zero FIR and transferred the case to Kodavalur police station.