Thieves in Delhi’s highly secured lutyens’ Zone are stealing whatever they get. Till now they fancied nameplates, car tyres etc and now they are targeting the front gate lamps of VIPs.
A close vigil is being maintained by the Delhi Police in this highly sensitive zone especially after a series of thefts were reported in this area but on Saturday evening, thieves returned targeting the house of Air Vice Marshal Sreekumar Prabhakaran at ‘98 lodhi Estate’ and decamped with the two front gate lamps of his house, leaving police red faced.
Tripurari Yadav, who is a non-combat employee in the Indian Air Force and has been serving at the particular bungalow for the past six months, reported the theft to the police.
“On 3rd February around 11 pm, while I was going to sleep, I saw the two lamps at the front gate and they were on. Next morning both the lamps were missing. I immediately informed police and gave them a written complaint, asking them to register an FIR,” stated Yadav.
Following the incident, Tughlak Road police station personnel and a crime team was pressed into service to nab the culprits.
“A crime team visited the spot and a forensics team was also called in to lift fingerprints and footprints. A case under section 379 (punishment for theft) was registered at the Tughlaq Road Police Station on the complaint of Yadav. Further investigation in the matter is on,” said a senior police official.
In a span of just two months, three thefts have been reported in the lodhi Estate area, all of which are yet unsolved.
On January 3, the brass nameplate of Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand was reportedly stolen from the front gate of her house at ‘42 lodhi estate area’.
Meanwhile, on December 11 last year, thieves barged into the house of Vice-Admiral Michael Moraes’s house opposite lodhi Estate area, which falls under Tughlaq Road Police station. They got away with all the jewellery and cash from the house.
last November, several valuables, including idols and “copper Gandhi glasses” gifted to Congress lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were stolen from his lodhi Estate house.