Burglars break into 2 shops, loot cash and mobiles worth ₹21 lakhs

LUCKNOW: A gang of burglars equipped with latest gadgets broke into two mobile shops in the Hasanganj area early on Saturday morning and took away cash and mobile phones worth ₹21 lakh within one hour.

The gang first targeted Sewa Digital Electronics shop owned by Imran Raza, a resident of Qaiserbagh area, at around 4.30am. The gang used advanced hydraulic jack to lift the shop’s shutter and one of them, who was lean and thin, slipped into the shop without breaking its locks.

Four other gang members stayed outside and posed as if they were labourers sleeping on the pavement outside the shop. They kept an eye on people’s movement near the shop.

The entire incident was recorded in the CCTV cameras installed inside the shop that shows that only one man entered the shop while four other stayed outside.

The burglar stayed inside the shop for around 40 minutes during which he collected around ₹2.5 lakh in cash and mobile phones worth ₹18 lakh. The burglar easily came out again by lifting the shutter using the hydraulic jack and fled.

The gang thereafter targeted another mobile shop, Mobile Mart, owned by one Mirza Salman Beg. They took away around ₹5,000 in cash and mobile phones worth ₹60,000.

The incident was discovered when the shopkeepers opened their shops at around 11am and found the shops ransacked. They then alerted the local police about the incident.

ASP, trans-Gomti, Harendra Kumar said the modus-operandi suggested that both the thefts were committed by the same gang.

He described the gang as ‘Chaddar gang’, who uses bed sheets to cover the shutter’s base posing as if they are sleeping there and one of their members slips inside the shop by lifting the shutter with hydraulic jack.

The ASP added that people often did not have suspicion on them believing them as labourers sleeping outside the shops.

A team of finger prints experts and dog squad were called at the crime scene to get some clue about the burglars.

The police team had retrieved video grabs of the gang members from the CCTV footage available with Sewa Digital Electronics shop and was trying to track them down, said the ASP.