In two separate incidents of house burglaries in the city, 135 sovereigns of gold jewellery were stolen from the residences of a retired State government employee and a retired NABARD official.
Police said A Devaraj, the retired State government employee, residing at HIG Colony in Nolambur, had gone on a tour along with his relatives on Saturday morning. The family, which was living in the neighbourhood of City Police Commissioner S George, returned on Sunday night only to find all the locks of the doors in the ground floor broken open.
Gold jewellery weighing around 85 sovereigns and cash to the tune of Rs 50,000 were stolen. Anna Nagar Deputy Commissioner of Police Prem Anand Sinha, Thirumangalam Assistant Commissioner of Police B Kalitheerthan and other officials visited the scene of crime.
The burglars had jumped into the compound and broken a total of eight locks right from the main grill door up to the bedroom, with crowbars. They had ransacked the house to find the rest of the valuables as they were able to find only 3 sovereigns and cash Rs 50,000 from the steel locker. Eventually, they found the rest of the valuables stashed in a backpack in one of the bedrooms.
A neighbour said that there was a police beat opposite the house and that the night patrol team did not visit that stretch on Saturday night. Police had also found a piece of glove used by the burglars at the scene of crime.
In the other incident, burglars decamped with 50 sovereigns of jewellery from the residence of Chidambaram, a retired NABARD official, at Poonga Apartment on 2nd Avenue in Anna Nagar West on Saturday morning, after attacking his octogenarian mother.
Chidambaram had left for his native place Nagercoil with his family, leaving behind his mother Pappammal (87) .
When the family returned on Monday morning, they found neighbours gathered near the door, which was open. The family rushed into the house and found Pappammal with bleeding injuries in the head. The burglars fled after stealing 50 sovereigns from two steel lockers. Sniffer dogs were pressed into service and finger prints lifted in both crime spots.