Rourkela, Sept. 3: Police today arrested six persons involved in seven cases of loot and robbery in the city between March and August.

The gang perpetrated two loots in Sector-III and VII, three cases in Raghunathpalli, and one each in Plant Site and Koira police jurisdictions. Gold and silver ornaments worth lakhs of rupees were seized from them.

With the arrest of Pravat Tiwari, Asutosh Jha, Navin Gupta, Sayun Soy alias Mandira, Birsa Munda and Rajesh Singh, the police have solved seven cases, with the latest being the one that took place at Sector-I in a businessman's house on August 11.

"The modus operandi they used to follow was to do a recce and collect information from the locality about the house they had targeted," said deputy superintendent of police (zone-I) P.K. Mishra.

During the absence of the male members of the house, the criminals used to commit the crimes. "Their list of crimes is long. At this moment, it is seven. However, we are investigating whether they are involved in any more cases," said Mishra.

"Following such large numbers of cases, police teams were sent to various places in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar," said Mishra.

During investigation, two names surfaced - Pravat Tiwari and Rahul Sahu - and later they were found to be the masterminds in all these crimes. Sahu is absconding.

A few days ago, Raghunathpalli police arrested three persons - Koel Bag, Sk Majid and Sk Raju - in a murder case. "During interrogation, we found their involvement in these loot cases, and subsequently, we arrested the rest of the gang members while one is absconding," said Mishra.

Besides, two persons - Adhir Karmakar and Prahalad Prasad - have been arrested in the case.

The police have recovered one pistol, two sharp weapons, eight mobile sets and two bikes from them. Besides, the cops have recovered gold ornaments weighing 200 grams and 2.5kg of silver whose market values are Rs 6 lakh and Rs 1.25 lakh, respectively. The robbers have been booked under Arms Act andon charges of robbery <> Indian Penal Code.