2 held for burglary at officials’ houses

The police arrested two persons for burglaries at the houses of IAS officer Subodh Yadav, State Election Commissioner P N Srinivasachari and eight other places.

The Sanjaynagar police arrested Jagadish and Rajendra, and recovered 600 grams of gold, 2 kg of silver and other items worth Rs 19 lakh from their possession.

A senior police official said the accused would survey houses in the guise of selling balloons, break into the houses at night and steal valuables.

The accused were staying with their family in a temporary shed near the Yeshwantpur railway station. Their wives and children would beg at the station.

They sell balloons near the ISKCON temple and later walk into adjacent streets, looking for locked houses. After stealing the valuables, they would go to Ajmer to sell the bangles and other golden ornaments and return to the city with the money.

Jagadish and Rajendra were roaming around Bhoopasandra when the police arrested them and hauled them in for questioning. They confessed to the crimes during the interrogation.

They burgled Subodh Yadav’s house in Sanjaynagar on July 16 last year when he was away in Chennai with his family.

They broke open the doors and took away 240 grams gold and 1 kg silver, among other valuables. The bureaucrat discovered the crime when he returned home the following day. The police official said fingerprints gathered from Yadav’s
residence matched that of the accused.

In the same area, the accused burgled the house of Srinivasachari on December 22, when he was away at Mysuru with his family. The family discovered the crime on their return on December 26. Jagadish and Rajendra had covered the CCTV cameras with a piece of cloth before the theft, but left behind fingerprints that helped to nail them.

They have confessed that they had burgled four houses in Sanjaynagar, three homes in Annapoorneshwari Nagar and one in Jnanabharathi, the police said.