Pics: Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (SP)

Bantwal, Jul 12: People in and around Vittal had gone through an ordeal of having to spend sleepless nights some time back because of serial thefts. The serial thieves thereafter, seemed to have shifted their base to Puttur, where gold ornaments were snatched away from the necks of a number of sleeping people in the recent past.

On the night of Sunday July 10, the serial thieves struck at house around Vittal. They entered five houses within Vittal Casba village and decamped with gold ornaments worth two lac rupees. The policemen feel that this is the handiwork of a team of expert thieves, who open the doors, steal valuables from cupboards, and yank away gold ornaments from the bodies of people who are fast asleep, duly ensuring that they do not get to know what was happening.

The thieves entered the house of Satyanarayana V J at Addadabeedi in Vittal by forcing open the front door, and took away gold ornaments kept in an almirah. When a thief pulled at the Karimani chain from the neck of Satyanarayan’s mother, she was awakened. Before the family could react, the thieves took to their feet. Thereafter, the thieves opened the front door of a home belonging to Srikant on Vittal-Mangalore Road, and took away a three-sovereign Karimani chain belonging to Srikant’s wife, Ratnavati. The thieves also entered the houses of Dr Suresh and Shamir in Ponnottu. Shamir works abroad. But the thieves did not get anything there.

A team of finger print experts and sniffer dogs arrived at the spot and examined the area. The total value of ornaments stolen has been put at two lac rupees. Puttur assistant superintendent of police, Dr Rohini Katoch, in-charge circle inspector, Vivekanand, Vittal police sub-inspector, Rakshit Gowda, and other police personnel visited the spot.

Although the thieves have been making merry during the monsoon season by stealing valuables from various villages including B C Road, Kadeshwalya and Salethur since the last some days, none of them have been nabbed so far.

The policemen in the meantime, have asked the people to be vigilant about the movement of strangers and pass information about suspicious movements of strangers at night to police stations.