Two cases of armed robberies were reported in Madurai city and Alanganallur since Sunday night in which masked men robbed at knifepoint a woman at a private milk parlour in Anna Nagar and men at a TASMAC liquor shop at Alanganallur.
In the first incident reported on Sunday night, five men, who had covered their faces with black clothes, looted ₹3,21,934 from the TASMAC shop at Kondaiyampatti on Alanganallur-Thanichiyam Road.
When the grille gate was opened by one of the workers, Sanjay Kumar (42), a masked robber barged into the shop and placed a knife on the throat of a supervisor, S. Thangam (43), around 9.30 p.m.
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He was followed by two other knife-wielding robbers. The trio took away ₹2,39,828 kept in the cash box and ₹82,106 stashed in a refrigerator. One of them snatched the mobile phone from Santhosh Kumar, another employee.
Meanwhile, two other robbers kept a watch outside the shop. Then, the gang members, sporting pants and shirts, fled on two motorbikes towards Thanichiyam.
The police said none was injured in the incident. The money kept at the shop was two days’ collection. Alanganallur police are investigating.
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In a similar incident, two masked men robbed R. Jayalakshmi (33), who was running a milk parlour at Marudhupandiyar Nagar in Anna Nagar here, of ₹65,000 on Monday night.
The police said the duo walked into the parlour with two swords and tried to snatch the mobile phone of Ms. Jayalakshmi around 10.30 p.m.
Even as the mobile phone fell on the floor, the men took out the money kept in the cash box. Within a few seconds they fled on a motorbike that was ridden by another person, waiting at a distance. Ms. Jayalakshmi’s husband M. Rajagopal, a cook, and a former Corporation councillor, A. Jayakumar, were at the parlour at that time.
“The robbers had covered their faces with their lungies. They were sporting half trousers and T-shirts. They did not harm me, but I suffered a small bruise on the hand, caused by the nails of one of them when he tried to snatch my mobile phone,” Ms. Jayalakshmi said.
All shops in the vicinity were closed at that time, she said. Only in June, a knife-wielding man looted ₹2,000 from the same shop when N. Veerapandi, a college student and a part-time worker, was at the parlour around 8.30 p.m. Anna Nagar police are investigating.