Stolen chest found behind house, Rs 50 lakh jewellery safe

CHANDIGARH: Thieves took away a locker full of antique jewellery worth about Rs 50 lakh from house 666 of Sector 8 in the wee hours of Sunday. The owner’s driver, as claimed, found the chest dumped in the back lane, later, with all the ornaments intact.

The Godrej safe protecting the ancestral gold jewellery of the house owner, real-estate businessman

Damanpreet Singh Sekhon

, proved too strong for the burglars perhaps. Police suspect that the thieves entered from the backdoor by breaking its locks and carried away the safe from the first floor while the family was asleep. The theft came to light around 10am when the family found the backdoor locks broken and the safe missing.

Deputy superintendent of police (central division) Krishan Kumar said: “After Sekhon rang up the police control room, senior superintendent of police

Nilambari Vijay Jagdale

, DSP operations, DSP crime, Sector-3 station house officer (SHO) and I inspected the scene of crime. After registering a case at the Sector 3 police station, we scanned security-camera footage of the nearby areas for any clue to the burglars.”

Several parties of the central subdivision police are involved in the investigation. Forensic experts and dog squads were also called in to gather evidence from the scene of crime and trace the intruders. Seeing heavy police force in the area, Sekhon’s driver Ghanshyam came out of a nearby house and told the cops he had picked an inverter-like object from the back lane and kept it as abandoned property.

Police took Sekhon along to Ghanshyam’s room, where the businessman identified his locker and confirmed that its contents were safe. Police said: “It seems that the thieves failed to break open the safe and had no course but to abandon it, although the versions of the driver, security guards, and a few others suspects are being verified. The CCTV (closed-circuit television) image of the house and nearby might give us some clue.”

Box:

Past break-ins

April 10 | Jewellery worth Rs 80 lakh and Rs 5 lakh cash stolen from the house of businessman

Rajinder Gupta

in Sector 42. Case unsolved

January 10 | Four intruders robbed Sector-33 businessman

Ajit Jain

of jewellery and cash worth Rs 1.5 crore, held the family hostage, and uprooted the recorder of the security camera system of the house