BELAGAVI: It’s not only floods that are creating a nuisance in flood-hit Belagavi, but also thieves that are creating havoc in people’s lives. Several houses that were evacuated due to the floods were found robbed when the owners got back home.
The burglaries were reported at flood-hit taluks including Gokak, Chikodi, Athani and Khanapur. When Suresh Rama Patil of Chikodi returned home, he found that several goods from his house were stolen. He said that the thieves did not even spare the ceiling fans of his house. Patil filed a police complaint on Friday.
Abbas Shaikh, a resident of Gokak was also victim to robbery. Before flood hit his house Shaikh has packed all his valuables and kept them on a shelve in his house. When he returned after the floods, he saw that all the valuables had been stolen. They did not even spare his utensils and food items.
According to police officials, the thieves are experts at swimming and have taken advantage of the flood situation. In a similar incident, a group of youngsters caught two thieves who were robbing a flood-affected house and thrashed them at Gokak town. However, they eventually managed to escape.It is not just thieves who are taking advantage of the flood situation, but there are several victims who are selling biscuits, water bottles and other such relief material.
To avoid people from misusing the relief materials, the district administration officials said that the donors should either contact them or the taluk administration. “The administration knows which are the villages that need those materials and which all are already supplied with sufficient relief materials. If the donors approach directly to the flood hit villages, the miscreants are bound to take disadvantage of them, they concluded.
Meanwhile, several individuals and groups have started collecting relief materials across the district.
However, these transactions are not authorised and hence the police have alerted the public not to contribute to such people.