Posing as an income tax official and a police officer, two tricksters duped a woman V. Dhanalakshmi (45) and made her hand over 49 sovereigns of gold, ₹45,000 and two mobile phones at Tiruvalluvar Nagar in Palanganatham on Tuesday morning.
The police said that one of them was wearing a police uniform and another sporting a turban and a fake beard.
The duo entered the house of C. Veeran, a Sanitary Inspector with the Madurai Corporation, at around 10.30 a.m.
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Even as his wife asked who they were, they hurriedly rushed into the house and locked the wooden door from inside.
Claiming themselves to be from the IT Department, they told Dhanalakshmi that her husband, Veeran had already been secured by their colleagues. Veeran had left home for his duty at around 7 a.m.
“Veeran’s teenage daughter who was present at the house raised a suspicion and told Dhanalakshmi to call her father to ascertain the facts,” a police source said. Her contention was that if Veeran’s phone was switched off the claim of the stranger could be true or else otherwise.
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However, the duo who realised the impending danger, snatched two mobile phones from the mother and daughter, Veeran said.
Asking the daughter, studying 10th standard, to enter the bedroom, they locked the door from outside.
Later, they warned Dhanalakshmi not to try to hide anything about their movable and immovable properties as Veeran had already spilled the beans. When they questioned the woman about the source of income for two houses they had recently bought in their neighbourhood, the woman thought that they were really from the IT department.
Even as they were talking to her, the duo made the woman open the almirah and take out the valuables.
The men had carried with them a bag from which they pulled out an electronic weighing machine. After weighing the gold they left the house in a huff taking the gold, ₹45,000 and the mobile phones.
A woman in the neighbourhood said that she had seen the car parked outside and moving out of their street. “But, I assumed that some guest would have come to their house,” she said.
Since the door was locked, neighbours did not get to know what was happening inside.
The neighbours came to know about the crime only after the woman raised an alarm after they left within 20 minutes.
Senior police officers visited the house and identified a car moving out of the locality through a closed-circuit television camera video clipping.
The police said that someone who had known some basic details about the family had played the trick. The police said that the duo had not attempted to snatch some 25 sovereigns of gold worn by Dhanalakshmi. The Subramaniyapuram police are investigating.