RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Oct 7: Petty offenders in Jharkhand capital remained active during Durga Puja and are active to take full advantage of carelessness of house owners who did not bother for the security of their houses in order to enjoy festivity or thinks electronic surveillance ultimate to immune their houses from theft or other petty offences.
While more than six cases of theft were reported from Hatia locality alone, one or two cases were reported from the majority of localities of the city.
“While some cases were reported, several remained unreported,” a police official said, sharing the problem of policing during Puja.
“Terror of thieves increases in Ranchi as soon as the festival comes. Last month as many as six thefts were reported from Mansarovar, a colony near Tupudana in Hatia area. On September 4, lakhs were stolen from three houses, while on Saturday night of September 24 thieves struck three houses. The houses that were targeted include house number 547 of businessman Devvrat Kumar, house number 65 of Special Branch employee Purushottam Kumar and the house of National Enterprises owner Anandeshwar,” a police official said.
Explaining the modus operandi, the police official said: “The thieves broke the window grill of the bedroom of Devvrat Kumar’s house. After breaking the lock of the almirah, they decamped with Rs 55,000 cash and ornaments worth Rs two lakh. Similarly Rs 6,000 cash was taken from the house of Purushottam Kumar. The thief entered Anandeshwar’s house by uprooting the grill, but could not steal it. When the house owner woke up in the morning, the theft was reported,” the police official said.
Sharing an interesting case of theft, another police official said CCTV is no hurdle for thieves.
“Entrepreneur Devvrat Kumar had installed a CCTV camera in front of his house. Alarms were also set for no one to enter inside, but the vicious thieves carried out the theft, defying all the security arrangements. The thieves broke the CCTV camera with a stick. At the same time, the alarm wire was disconnected. When the owner of the house woke up from sleep, all the things in the room were scattered. It didn’t take long to realize that it had been stolen,” a local resident said.
Another locality resident said thieves have absolutely no fear of the police. This can be gauged from the fact that before committing the theft, the thieves sat outside the house of Special Branch employee Purushottam Kumar and drank alcohol leisurely. “The police, who arrived in the morning to investigate, have seized empty liquor bottles from outside the house,” the resident said.
A resident of Tatisilwai said when retired army personnel Ritesh Kumar went to see Puja during night, two thieves on October 5 entered his house in Hari Nagar in Tatisilwai. “When Kumar returned at 3.30am on October 6 he noticed a broken lock on his house. Smelling rat he called neighbours and caught one of the two thieves,” the resident said, adding that thieves remain watchful and target the unattended house.
An official at Argora police station said reports of petty offences keep on coming but people prefer not to register FIR but alert police officials.
“We take notice of every information and act. However, it has not become possible so far to put a full stop on petty offences,” the official said.
