RANCHI: In a quirk of fate, a thief ended up taking stolen valuables to a member of the very family from whose house he had stolen them. He took the goods to Baliapur market in the Dhanbad town of Jharkhand.
The prospective buyer identified the belongings and became suspicious, exposing the accused’s participation in the crime. Once the accused’s identity as a thief was disclosed, enraged locals caught hold of him, thrashed him and later handed him over to the police. The accused has been identified as Vijay Pal.
According to reports, thieves targeted the home of Sadhu Pal in Baliapur about a week ago. They had broken into the house and stolen four fans and a Tullu water pump.
Sadhu Pal’s family did not get any clue about the stolen goods till, on Sunday, Vijay Pal tried to sell the water pump in the Baliapur market. As fate would have it, he ended up contacting Madhav Pal, the elder brother of Sadhu Pal, as the prospective buyer.
Since Madhav Pal needed a water pump, a deal was struck between the two. Madhav Pal handed over some money to the accused in advance. When Vijay Pal arrived in the market with the stolen pump, Madhav Pal became suspicious. He immediately called his brother Sadhu Pal to check whether it was the same pump which had been stolen from his house.
As soon as Sadhu Pal saw the pump, he recognised it as his property. The Pal brothers raised an alarm, and a crowd gathered at the spot, which thrashed the accused before handing him over to the police.
The police are interrogating the accused to locate the other four stolen items. “A complaint has been received and a probe is currently under way,” said the officer in charge of the Baliapur police station.