Thief who targeted a house in South Delhi's Panchsheel Park early Monday morning also took off with a pair of the occupant's shoes and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

Apart from Rs 20,000 cash, a gold chain and a phone, a thief who targeted a house in South Delhi’s Panchsheel Park early Monday morning also took off with a pair of the occupant’s shoes and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. As the home owners, a couple, slept, the thief also left behind something to remember him by: His own Nike shoes.

DCP (South) Atul Kumar Thakur said an FIR under IPC Section 380 (theft in dwelling house) has been filed. A senior officer said, “The 41-year-old resident made a PCR call regarding theft from her house between 2 am and 5.30 am. All locks of the house were intact, and the complainant and her husband were home at the time… No CCTV camera was installed in the house.”

The case has been registered at Hauz Khas police station, and no arrest has been made so far.

A source close to the couple told The Indian Express that the thief “entered the couple’s room” as they slept, and took the husband’s phone from there. When they woke up in the morning, they realised the front and back doors of the house were open.

H R Vaish, president of the Panchsheel Park cooperative society, said residents found out about the theft in the morning via the colony’s WhatsApp group.

He said: “One of the theories being discussed is that it’s possible the thief sprayed something that put the couple in deeper sleep… We have come to know that the complainant is a light sleeper and would have obviously woken up when someone entered the room.” Police have not found proof of this so far.

Vaish said that since Covid restrictions in March, Panchsheel Park has become a gated colony, “but there is a stretch where a public park lies that we haven’t been able to add security to. The park has given access to all kinds of criminal elements and this is a problem we have been facing for a while. There are 60 guards deployed in the colony; and CCTVs installed by the colony as well as the Delhi government.”

Vaish claimed that upon inspection of the park area Monday, “a portion of the barbed wire was found cut”. “No CCTV has caught the wire being cut but in all likelihood this is how the thief entered the area, and entered the house via the back door,” he said, adding that two security guards have now been deployed in the park.