A day after the daring daylight robbery, executed by a group of fake I-T officials at the house of a transport businessman at Vanasthalipuram on Friday, the only thing the rattled family could recollect was how the whole incident seemed like a movie scene that was perfectly executed.
Not even in their wildest dreams, they say, could they have imagined something like this happening to them.
On an overcast Saturday, while the two small kids playfully ran around the house enjoying their day off from school, the visibly-shaken family attended to phone calls from near and dear ones and tried hard to control their tears when they spoke about the loss of their hard-earned money.
Srinivas Rao, who runs a transport business at Autonagar, had stocked a good amount of gold, silver and cash at his well-secured home, where he lives with his wife and two children.
An emotional Rao said, “We have been living in Hyderabad for 12 years and for my business, I had kept around Rs 2.3 lakh cash and my wife’s gold and silver ornaments worth about Rs 28 lakh at home. The people who robbed us could be someone close to us, but it was like a scene right out of a film, which displayed perfect execution of the script.”
Rao and family, who are natives of Tenali in Guntur district, were shocked by the fact that the ‘officials’ spoke the Tenali accent and knew the family’s background and history. The imposters searched the entire house for about one-and-a-half hours.
On Friday, a group of seven members barged into Rao’s residence at Saradanagar at around 6.20 am. “They just flashed their ID cards, came inside and closed the door, seized our cell phones and asked us to stay in the room till the search was over. They did not give us the slightest hint that they were conmen,” Rao said, adding that they also left behind some fake I-T department documents, which have been handed over to the police.
According to him, the fake taxmen behaved just like real I-T department officials, neatly dressed and well-behaved. “One person, about 40 years old, acted as the chief and sat with us, while others, who were around 35 years old, ransacked the house and called each other sir,” Rao said.
Unable to control her emotions, Rao’s wife Padmavathi said, “They had come walking straight into our home without even asking anyone for the address. The head of the group first left saying he wants to search our office at Autonagar while the rest, after collecting all the valuables, left on foot in two different directions.”
The fraudsters had informed Rao that he would have to give a statement in writing after they verified all the papers, and then collect back the belongings. It was only when the con group left his house and he contacted his auditor that Rao came to know something was wrong. “I called up the IT department office where they said no such raids were conducted, following which I approached the police,” said Rao