ROURKELA: In an audacious daylight burglary, unidentified miscreants sneaked into the official quarters of a police havildar located within the campus of Plant Site police station and decamped with gold and silver ornaments worth around Rs 12 lakh on Saturday.
The incident came to light after Subrata Hota, a havildar with the Reserve Office (RO), lodged a complaint on Saturday night.
The burglary, executed right at the backyard of the police station, is being seen as a mockery of the police at a time when the ongoing Operation Suraksha is specifically aimed at containing property offences and keeping hardcore and habitual offenders under surveillance.
Hota’s wife said all four members of the family, her husband and their two children, were away at the nearby Lathikata block for a few hours from 9.30 am to 6 pm on Saturday when the incident took place. She said that on returning around 6 pm, they were shocked to find the main door lock broken and rushed inside.
She added, “Gold and silver ornaments with the present valuation running into Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh were cleaned from the wardrobe and almirah,” noting that four door locks were cut open or broken to gain entry into the house.
Zone II Deputy SP Amarendra Sandh confirmed that Hota is posted with the RO and had returned home on May 21 after four months of training. “On the day of the incident, he was away from home with his family,” he said. Quoting the Plant Site IIC, Sandh added that gold and silver ornaments worth around Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12 lakh were stolen and an investigation is underway.
The complainant’s official quarter in the police colony is located just behind the Plant Site police station, a campus that is well guarded and enclosed by a boundary wall. The fact that the burglary occurred during daylight hours at such a presumably secure location is being viewed as a direct challenge to police authority.
Local residents confided that criminals appear to have little fear of the police, as multiple innovative initiatives aimed at curbing crime are failing to yield the desired results.
DIG of Police (Western Range), Brijesh Kumar Rai, described the incident as an aberration. He said, “Instruction has been issued to form special teams for the arrest of the culprits and recovery of the stolen properties at the earliest.”
The DIG also pointed out that compared to 153 theft cases in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2024, theft cases have dropped to 66 in Q1 (January–March) 2025. He added that the cumulative detection rate in theft cases was 55 percent and that there had been an overall 70 percent reduction in theft cases over the past six months.