Nagpur :- Burglars strike rich at Hingna T-Point

It was a double blow for the Biswas family. The couple lost silver idols of Laxmi and Ganesh as burglars targeted three apartments in the Shree Ambika Palace building at Hingna T-Point on Thursday. Due to this, they even had to abandon their planned holiday to Kerala.

The miscreants broke into the top floor of the three-storeyed building and locked the remaining 14 apartments, including the one of police inspector SC Suratkar's on the first floor, from the outside before decamping with valuables. Suratkar is currently posted at the Pachpaoli police station. To ensure that the neighbours don't peak out, the miscreants had even blocked the eyeholes on the doors with wrappers of 'Tikli' bomb.

Significantly, the building did not have a watchman and all three apartments were empty. While the Biswases were off to Kerala on a holiday, the Gedams were away at a relative's place. Sophiya Khan, who stays in the third apartment, is away in Jamshedpur. As she had taken away most of her valuables, the Khan's suffered the least loss.

The residents suspect that some salesmen, who were also enquiring about the locked apartments, could be behind the thefts.

Dheetobrata and Sharmistha Biswas were in the train when they received a call from a neighbour that their apartment's lock was broken and the rooms ransacked. The couple had shifted into the building around a year ago.

"We got off the train at Ballarshah and returned. We had left for the station just before 4am," said a visibly upset Sharmistha whose jewellery too was missing. The burglars had decamped with a big LCD television which had been placed on a table in the drawing room. The family faced a loss of Rs 1.50 lakhs.

Dheetobrata, a chartered accountant, was also worried on seeing his car key missing. A neighbour felt that the thieves may have tried to drive away with the car but may have found it difficult to take it out of the parking slot.

The Khans' bedroom had a ransacked look. The neighbours have locked the room and are waiting for them to return.

A member of the Wankhede family, who reside on the second floor, was the first to realize that he had been locked in while trying to leave for a morning walk at 5.30am. He called up Sanjay Pandey who resides on the third floor. A brave Pandey then jumped out of the window and onto the balcony, and freed the rest of the residents.