Bhubaneswar, June 9: Kharavela Nagar police have detained the father of an accused involved in the Wednesday night robbery at a jewellery shop in Master Canteen Square and are interrogating him to find out the whereabouts of his son.

Officials said the mastermind of the robbery was Ranjan Das, an employee of the jewellery shop that was looted.

He belonged to Konark in Puri and was staying at Lingipur in Lingaraj police limits on the outskirts of the city.

“With inputs from his father and mobile phone tracking records, a team of police conducted raid on a hideout of Das, but he managed to escape with the stolen jewellery items before police reached there,” said a senior police officer.

He said Das has been changing his mobile phones from time to time. The police, however, declined to disclose the identity of his father.

The police officer said Das was a criminal who had been working in the jewellery shop for the past five years.

On Wednesday, Das left the shop before it had closed for the day and the police believed he informed the robbers. Since that day, Das did not come to the shop and his mobile phone was switched off.

Officials believe that the other three suspects, who hail from Berhampur, have escaped to Calcutta and several police teams have been conducting raids at their possible hideouts.

Earlier, one of the accused, Jitu Panda of Balasore, was caught by the shop employees while he was trying to escape and handed over to the police.

In the past 10 days, more than 10 cases of armed dacoity, burglary and robbery have been reported in the city. Residents blamed lack of police patrolling in the city for the sudden rise of such crimes here.

“Cops say their men are patrolling the city on motorcycles. But we have not seen a single patrolling bike in our area for more than a month now,” said Parsuram Mohanty, a senior citizen residing in Kolathia.

However, police officials said patrolling was regular.

“Our beat patrolling teams and police patrolling vans have been doing their duty. We are trying to arrest the suspects involved in these incidents and intensify patrolling all over the city,” said a senior police officer.