Owners away, thieves target nine houses in Arun Vihar

Noida: Thieves broke into at least nine houses in a row in Arun Vihar society between 1am and 5am on Sunday, prompting questions on policing and lack of CCTV cameras in an area inhabited mostly by retired Army personnel.
The houses that were targeted are all in Ward number 6 and their owners are either based abroad and are away on vacation. The owners of at least four of the houses are in the US to spend time with their children. By Sunday afternoon, only one of the occupants had returned.
In some of the targeted house that have tenants in adjoining rooms, the thieves had bolted the doors from outside so that they couldn’t come out even if they realised something amiss.
Residents suspect the burglars had entered the society after scaling the wall of an adjacent park, where a ladder was spotted. They also said some insiders might have been involved as the thieves had information about the houses whose owners were away.
Colonel Prateek Bhargava (retd), whose house was one of those targeted between 1am and 5am, said one of his neighbours called him up on Sunday morning informing about the theft. He was on a vacation to Uttarakhand with his family.
“I just arrived in Noida and am getting the door fixed. I am yet to assess the loss. Fortunately, we didn’t keep any gold jewellery inside the house,” said Col Bhargava, who found the handle of his door broken.
The other houses that were burgled belong to Colonel Jaswant Singh (retd), Lt General GS Rawat, Krishna Dahiya, Colonel RD Sharda (retd), Dimple Sunderlal, Rahul Saluja, Colonel GS Vohra (retd) and Colonel AK Malik (retd).
While breaking into the house of Colonel Singh (retd), the burglars bolted from outside the door of an adjacent room where two tenants stay.
Two of Colonel Malik’s domestic helps, who, too, stay in a room on the premises, told TOI that the accused had entered the house by breaking the lock on the main gate, but they didn’t hear anything. “We have got the door handle repaired and informed the owners,” said Bishni, one of the helps.
Madhvi Gupta, whose house, too, the thieves had targeted but failed to break in, said the gang might have scaled the wall of the Arun Vihar park that shares a boundary with the society. She pointed out that a youth had come to her house in the morning claiming to have brought along notices for non-payment of electricity bill. “When I asked for his identity, he fled,” she said.
Sunday’s burglaries were not the only instance of thieves targeting houses in Arun Vihar. On March 25, cash and jewellery worth Rs 4 lakh were stolen from the house of Julie Monga. “There are no CCTV cameras in the society except at the main gate, which burglars would never use. Nobody in the society ever asked for money for getting CCTVs in place,” she said. “How is it possible that someone knows the time you leave and return to your house? It is an insider’s job,” she added.
Rajveer Singh Chauhan, the SHO of Sector 20 police station, said an FIR had been lodged under IPC section 379 (theft) against unknown persons. “There could be an insider role. But it has to be investigated,” he added.