LUCKNOW: A thief sneaked into a house in Basant Vihar locality in Chinhat and before decamping with jewellery worth Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh cash, he left behind his old slippers and wore a pair of branded shoes of the owner to make good his escape.
The smart act, captured in detail in the CCTV cameras, has left the police officers bemused, who are now making efforts to arrest him.
According to the police, the incident took place in the house of Ritesh Singh, who owns a pharma company.
“While the thief is seen jumping over the wall and sneaking into the room around 3am on Tuesday, he left the house around 4.30am,” said police. Since everyone in the house was sleeping, during his one and a half hour stay, the thief searched the house stealthily, opened the cupboard, stole jewellery worth Rs 10 lakh and cash worth Rs 1.5 lakh kept in the safe.
“The stolen jewellery included 8 gold rings, 2 gold mangal sutras, 4 gold chains, 8 earrings and silver anklets,” said a police officer.
Just when he was about to leave, his eyes fell on a branded shoe. The expressions, as seen on CCTV footage shows how he could not control himself, and took no time in taking off his slippers and wearing the branded shoes, before escaping. As per Ritesh, the house owner, the thief could easily enter the house as the door of the house was open. Ritesh told police that the whole family was present in the house at the time of the incident but were sleeping in the other room.
In fact, his mother also got up to have water when the thief was inside the house.
“Due to poor eyesight, she thought it was Ritesh. By the time she realised something was wrong and raised an alarm, the thief had escaped,” Ritesh told police. DCP, East Zone, Shashank Singh said that a complaint has been registered in the case. “The thief will be identified on the basis of CCTV camera footage and will be arrested soon,” he added.
