The suspicion in the robbery at the Sri Harihara Finance is getting stronger on its manager, E. Duraipandi, who was reportedly attacked with knife by two robbers near Palanganatham on Thursday.
The police have found too many “loose ends” in his narration of the incident in which the robbers had taken away over 200 sovereigns of gold from the two lockers at the pawn broker shop on Neelakandan Temple Street at Pasumpon Nagar.
The first suspicion is how the “muscular” man gave in so easily to the robbers without any resistance for which there is no sign of struggle in the room. Three cut injuries seen on his right hand were “almost” parallel to each other. Duraipandi had told the investigators that after gagging him with a towel, the robbers tried to tie his hands on the back side.
“When I tried to resist, one of them started slashing with a knife,” he had told, a police officer said. “If his resistance had irked the robbers, they would have slashed him indiscriminately and not cut his hands patiently,” the officer said. The cut injuries were not deeper either.
Besides, the “silent” operation on a busy street not attracting the attention of passers-by or those who were at the two grocery shops, located within five metres from the finance company, is raising suspicion on the narration, the official said.
The police are not willing to believe him on his claim that the robbers had snatched his two-sovereign gold chain and a gold ring from him.
“The robbers had left so much of gold in several trays of the two lockers at the pawn shop. This shows that they had left in a hurry. If this be the case, why should they wait to snatch his chain and pull out his ring,” an official involved in the investigation said.
While an eye-witness, M. Manikandan, had said that he saw a man, wearing saffron dhoti, hurriedly coming out of the company with a white sack, Duraipandi had told the police that both the robbers had left the company together. The police had found more blood elsewhere in the office and not near his chair where he was left tied.
One pertinent question that is nagging the police is that even after the robbers had left the place, he had not tried to come out of the room as only his hands were tied and not his legs, the police said.
The police are verifying the call details of his mobile phone.
