Stealing bottles of premium liquor appears to have become a priority for some, at least for the time being.
The North Paravur police in Ernakulam rural region are after a thirsty thief, who struck the Bevco retail shop near the NH 17 a couple of days ago and made off with nine premium liquor bottles. The estimated value of the liquor stolen is around Rs.10,000.
According to police, the thief gained entry into the shop by prying open its shutters. But, he did not bother to break open the locker kept near the bottles with Rs. 1.50 lakh cash.
“It’s indeed baffling to find that he was more than happy with those nine bottles, even after taking so much pains to enter the shop,” officials said.
While a search is on to trace the liquor–thief, cops expect more stories of liquor purloins in future, thanks to the closing down of bar hotels.
Caught in red tapism
Last week, officials of the city police and fire-fighters nearly bumped their heads while attempting to rescue the person perched atop the Ernakulam district court complex.
With nothing to shield them from the flying tiles thrown by the person, the Fire Force sent for two shields from the police. The move, however, did not work the way they would have expected as the police insisted on releasing the protection gear only after receiving a formal request from the responsible officials.
And by the time the formalities were completed, the rescue team had lost crucial 30 minutes. While the senior officials sought to play down the incident, it has not gone down well with those in the lower ranks.
“It was quite unexpected from an agency trained to handle such emergency scenes very often. We were unable to approach the miscreant without the shields and the delay in bringing the shields contributed to the flawed response as well,” sources pointed out.
Hiran Unnikrishnan
