Mumbai: An 85-year-old woman had a frightening ordeal when two masked men broke into her ground floor residence in a four-storey building in Vile Parle (East), and robbed a gold chain valued at Rs 20 lakh. The incident occurred at 12.30 pm on Sunday, shortly after the woman’s 60-year-old son departed for a family gathering at his daughter in-laws’s house in the western suburbs. The Vile Parle police have registered a robbery case and assembled several teams to apprehend the suspects, who appeared to have conducted surveillance and were familiar with the daily routines of the elderly woman, her 40-year-old caretaker, and her son, who works as a real estate broker.
The crime was carried out within 40 minutes of the son’s departure. The victim recounted: “Minutes after my son left home, I heard a knock on the door. I opened the door and two men charged into the house. They tied me and my caretaker with a tape and tapped our mouths. One of them tried to remove my chain. When failed they used a cutter to cut the chain before fleeing away. They did not speak anything and did not harm us.”
The perpetrators had chosen their target carefully, noting that the old building lacked both security personnel and CCTV surveillance. “We have requested CCTV footage from the surrounding roads and the escape route taken by the suspects. They used a cutter to remove the gold chain from the victim. They restrained both the victim and her caretaker with tape. Other building residents remained unaware of the incident until the elderly woman’s son returned at 2 pm,” stated a police officer from the Vile Parle police station.
A police official indicated that they have nearly identified the suspects and expect to make arrests shortly. “The incident was discovered when the victim’s son returned to find the door unlocked. Upon entering, he found his mother and caretaker bound and distressed,” the official explained. The victim resides with her son and caretaker following her wife’s death several years ago, while both his children live separately in the city after marriage. MSID:: 117028394 413 |