Footwear heist: Hyderabad couple held with over 100 stolen pairs

HYDERABAD: In Bharat Nagar, Uppal, footwear was disappearing mysteriously, and locals were clueless. Soon, they realised someone was systematically sneaking into houses and swiping shoes, slippers and sandals.
On Wednesday, a suspicious man was spotted by a neighbour, who followed him. Soon, some others joined. And it became clear that they had stumbled upon something much bigger than a single pair of missing slippers at the house of the suspicious man.
The house was, in fact, a footwear fortress. Stacked in bags, on shelves, and even on the roof, were hundreds of stolen shoes and slippers. The neighbours were shocked to see rows upon rows of shoes that had once belonged to them. Local residents recognised their lost items. The accused was helped by his wife in this "great shoe heist".
After the residents complained, Uppal police registered a theft case against the couple. The offence committed by the accused was caught on CCTV cameras, and the accused were confronted by the neighbours. It turned out the couple had been selling their ‘stolen treasures' in various parts of the city.
Some curious locals even recorded on their mobiles the ‘search operations' for their missing footwear in the couple's house.