Diamond trader Ajay Mehta, one of the four suspects arrested in a diamond heist from a Mumbai branch of the State Bank of India, has told police that his motive for the alleged crime was his desire to build shelters for cows and pigeons, the Times of India reported.

Mehta told police he wanted to name the shelters after his parents. A senior police inspector, however, told the Times that suspects will "always use such excuses to gain sympathy."

Mehta and three associates were arrested last week on suspicion of an elaborate scheme to break into the bank's safe deposit boxes using duplicate keys. The group successfully managed to copy the keys to at least 14 of the bank's boxes and took diamonds from eight of them.

The diamonds, worth nearly $1 million, were recovered from Mehta's Gujarat home and returned to their owners.