BHUBANESWAR: City police on Sunday arrested a notorious burglar and seized Rs 21 lakh in cash along with 700 gm gold ornaments worth around Rs 42 lakh, seven kg silver jewellery valued at Rs 4.20 lakh, a Royal Enfield bullet, another motorcycle and two crowbars from him.
The accused, Parsuram Giri of Balasore’s Sultanpur has around 23 cases registered against him at Pahala, Mancheswar, Saheed Nagar, Laxmisagar, Badagada, Lingaraj and Dhauli police stations between 2021 and 2024. He was nabbed during night blocking on Saturday.
Giri mostly broke into locked houses and flats by scaling the boundary walls and opening iron grills of windows using crowbars. He operated between 1 am and 3 am and did not bother about his act being recorded on CCTV cameras installed in the houses. He availed services of ride-sharing companies to reach his targets and avoided walking on main roads. In case, the accused came face-to-face with PCR vehicle personnel, he managed to hoodwink them by giving different excuses.
“The accused always targeted locked houses and flats. It was a very challenging case and he was nabbed during night blocking on Saturday,” Bhubaneswar-Cuttack police commissioner, Sanjeeb Panda told mediapersons.
Panda said, Giri used the stolen booty to live a lavish life by travelling to metros like Kolkata, Mumbai and tourist hotspots like Goa. He used to stay at five-star hotels, wore luxury clothes and visited night clubs. He also spent money on prostitutes, said the police. Police said, he had constructed a house at Shivanagar Basti in Badagada, the rooms of which he had rented out. This apart, he had purchased land at his village and made investments in insurance policies. He committed the burglaries alone and had hardly any fear of security systems or PCR personnel.
One Prabin Baliram Lokhande of Maharashtra, who was staying in Forest Park area, was also arrested by police for receiving stolen articles from him. Giri is a school dropout and earlier worked as a labourer and assisted his father in construction work. He got married in 2003 but his wife died by suicide three years later as he used to harass her under the influence of alcohol and drugs. He had arrived in the capital city in 2008 and was arrested for the first time in 2011 for purchasing a stolen mobile phone.