Man behind dozens of house break-ins in 11 years caught

RT Nagar police on Tuesday said they had arrested a serial house burglar and recovered 350 grams of gold worth Rs 14 lakh from him.

A senior police officer said Santosh, a native of Kolar district, was a habitual offender and had been involved in dozens of house break-ins between 2009 and 2019. He was arrested by Vidyaranyapura police and remanded in judicial custody. Santosh came out on bail recently and continued with stealing valuables from locked houses.

The officer said Santosh would move around the city during daytime to mark locked houses for burglary. He would prowl the neighbourhood in the evening to check the houses and break-in during the night. He had recently burgled a house in Muneshwara block in RT Nagar and a complaint was filed.

RT Nagar police analysed the CCTV footage and later obtained evidence from the spot to identify the criminal. After his release, Santosh had broken into three houses in RT Nagar and one in KR Puram. Before that, he was also involved in house break-ins in Subramanyanagar, an extortion case in Jalahalli and theft in Byappanahalli.