The thief who operated in the nude and struck at houses in Alwarpet was arrested by the Teynampet police on Thursday.
This followed the inspection of CCTV footage obtained from a house in the area that caught the culprit in the act.
Sources with the Teynampet police said the suspect Kumar (39), an autorickshaw driver and a resident of Gopalapuram in Pudupet, was previously working as a domestic help at a house in the area and therefore knew the place well. Following a compliant by a resident who gave the police the CCTV footage, a team examined the images and identified Kumar.
On Thursday, investigators went to Kumar’s residence but he was not there. They traced him to Tiruvannamalai where he was arrested and brought to Chennai. The police recovered the stolen property including LPG cylinders from his possession. He was produced at a city court, remanded to custody and sent to Puzhal prison.
The police said during interrogation, Kumar had stated he quit his job as a domestic help as he had some misunderstanding with his employer. He then decided to take revenge and stole cylinders and household items from his former employer’s compound. Later, he continued to steal clothes and other items from houses in the vicinity. He didn’t have any explanation for operating in the nude or, in some instances, wearing only a stolen towel, the police said.
Following a complaint lodged by a resident on September 11, 2012, along with CCTV footage obtained then, the Teynampet police probed the matter and detained Kumar. But he was let off as investigators could not establish that he was the man seen in the footage, sources said.
