A three-month-old friendship forged on a well-known social networking site cost a 40-year-old government doctor his laptop, cell phone and credit card, apart from knocking him out for more than a day.
Sources with the Korattur police said the victim who is a doctor with the Government Railway Hospital and resides in Villivakkam, befriended the man from Pune, online in March.
The men exchanged email IDs and phone numbers and conversed on a number of occasions.
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Recently, the suspect told the doctor that he was coming to Chennai on work and wished to meet him. The doctor, who practises at a private hospital in Korattur in the evenings, lives in a rented house near the hospital.
He invited the suspect home after work, sources said. “The two met in Korattur on Sunday evening and went to the doctor’s house later. They chatted for a while and consumed alcohol. After a while, the doctor fell unconscious,” said an investigating officer with the Korattur police station. The doctor’s drink had been spiked, he added.
The medical practitioner gained consciousness early on Tuesday only to realise that his laptop, mobile phone, credit card and other valuables kept in the room were missing, the officer said.
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On Tuesday morning, he lodged a complaint with the Korattur police station. The police are expected to approach the cyber cell of the crime branch to track down the suspect with the email ID and contact details that the complainant had furnished.