Thiruvananthapuram:
Just as the shock of a major house-breaking at a non-resident Keralite’s home in the state capital was sinking in, another hi-tech burglary has been reported from here. The latest incident happened at the home of J. John, in which 100-plus gold sovereigns worth Dh152,000 were reported missing.
The incident comes even as police are on the trail of the house-breaker who managed to enter the home of non-resident Keralite Venugopalan Nair near Pattom and make away with a luxury car, laptop, mobile phones and other articles, valued in totoal at around Rs3 million (Dh205,000). The suspect in that case is Devinder Singh, alias Bunty Chor, who police believe has been involved in hundreds of such cases across different parts of the country.
The latest incident, which happened in the early hours of Wednesday, was near Thampuran Mukku in the capital city, not far from where the first house-breaking happened. The two incidents had at least two common factors: That the robber struck in the early hours, and that at least one family member was awake until the early hours, and the robberies happened after that.
Both homes had hi-tech security systems, including burglar alarms, but both homes were both easily broken into. In John’s house, John, his wife and daughter-in-law were at home when the incident happened. His two sons were away in Mumbai on a business trip. John’s family runs a retail store near Thampuran Mukku.
Reports indicate that the gold had been brought home from a bank locker only recently. The family keeps two dogs, but both had not been let free over the past couple of nights because some construction work was happening around the house.
The culprit may have entered through the back door, it is suspected. There are also reasons to believe the heist was done with the knowledge of someone close to the family because the ornaments were brought home only a few days ago, and also because there was minimum disturbance caused to articles in the house.
