The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : `Bureau-puller' is at it again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 25, 2006
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

`Bureau-puller' is at it again

Staff Reporter

Never leave keys on the almirah, residents told

TAMBARAM : The elusive `bureau-puller' struck at the house of a road contractor in Adambakkam in the early hours on Friday and took away 11-sovereign jewels while the inmates were sleeping.

The incident has come after a two-month break since the last such incident reported at Puzhuthivakkam in August.

The Adambakkam police said Prabhu, a civil engineer executing contracts for the State Highways Department, was staying in an apartment complex on Tamirabarani Street at Bharath Nagar. The culprit cut open the mosquito netting of a rear window of the flat and used a long wooden pole attached with an iron hook at its end. He then managed to get latch on to the bureau's handle and pull it close to the window.

The keys were left in the bureau itself and so burglar had no difficulty in opening it and the lockers inside. He then pulled out jewels and escaped. The engineer, his wife, their daughter and an aged relative were all sleep.

After preliminary investigations, the police concluded that the `bureau-puller' had followed the same method of operation used in earlier cases.

Prabhu and his family stayed in a ground floor apartment and the culprit had jumped into the complex from a house behind, instead of scaling the compound wall or using the main gate from the front.

Producing very little noise, he managed to pull the almirah close to the window as the floor was smooth because of the polished tiles.

A couple of steel chairs leaning on the bureau fell, making a rattling noise. The family members got up when the time was 4 a.m., but went back to bed assuming that the noise was created by rats in the kitchen.

The police suspected the culprit had walked to the scene of crime only with an iron hook and fixed it to one of the wooden poles found within the apartment complex.

The victims were shell-shocked and preferred not to talk about the incident.

The police advised residents to lock their almirah properly and insisted that the keys should not be left behind on the doors.

Six cases of bureau-pulling have been reported from the Madipakkam, Adambakkam and Pazhavanthangal areas in the past one year and 75 cases reported over the years.

Special teams comprising about 75 policemen looking into these cases have been disbanded.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu