Cash, valuables worth Rs 1.40 lakh stolen from parked vehicles

PUNE: Parked cars are no safe place to keep valuables, and Puneites are learning this the hard way.
On Thursday alone, three cases of theft from parked cars were reported in the city, which left their owners poorer by Rs 1.40 lakh.




The first incident occurred along the Senapati Bapat Road where Shraddha Mokashi (29), a resident of Nigdi, had parked her car before heading to attend some work. “When she returned to her car in the afternoon, she found that the window glass of the front door was broken. When she searched inside, her diamond ring and some cash, collectively worth Rs 45,000, were missing,” an officer from the Chatushrungi police station said, adding that they have registered a complaint and further investigation was under way.

In another similar incident on the same road, a laptop, a smartphone and cash, collectively worth Rs 62,000, were stolen from a parked car. “The suspects had broken the window glass of the back door before stealing the valuables,” another officer from the Chatushrungi police said.

The third incident occurred around 3.30pm outside the district court in Shivajinagar. The complainant, Supriya Shahane, had parked her car near gate no 2 of the court, in which she had kept her bag containing a gold chain, her daughter’s silver ornaments and some cash, collectively worth Rs 32,000.

“When she returned to the car, she found that the window glass of the back door was broken and the bag containing the valuables was missing,” an officer from the Shivajinagar police said, adding that police were investigating the case.

An officer from the crime branch of the Pune police told TOI that a gang involved in stealing valuables had been operating mainly in the Chatushrungi and Shivajinagar areas for the past 15 days. “Three software engineers have lost their laptops and foreign currency in the different cases in the last fortnight. We are trying to trace the suspects with the help of CCTV footage,” the officer said.