Issue No: 739; 8 May 2001

A group of 4 masked men with cane knives and iron rods robbed the Cumming St store around 9.30am today. Within two minutes of entering the shop, the robbers fled in a car with a bag of jewellery.

Cumming St is one of the main Suva streets and is always crowded with people and vehicles. It is a narrow one-way street which leads into another one-way road with street lights and heavy traffic. It is extremely difficult for ordinary motorists to exit from Cumming St, go past the street lights and exit from central city within a few minutes.

The robbery raises significant questions on the presence of police and police response to such cases of armed robberies. The shop robbed was also robbed around the same time last year.

Such robberies raise the question of whether there is collaboration between certain sections of the police force and the robbers. In the past, jewellery store owners have also been suspected to having organised robberies for financial benefits. There is no second hand market for jewellery in the country. It is believed that some jewellery store owners are the major buyers of stolen jewellery. So far, however, no jewellery store owner has been investigated for his or her involvement in such criminal rackets.