Ennore woman robs elderly of Rs 8 lakh, donates a portion to temple, arrested

CHENNAI: A 30-year-old woman from Ennore who robbed Rs 8 lakh from a senior citizen’s house in Ambattur after surveying homes of the elderly in the guise of an insurance agent has been arrested in Coimbatore. Identified as Kokila (30), she also woman donated a portion of the money to a temple, police said.

According to Ambattur police, the complainant Gopalakrishnan, a resident of Compounder Ramasamy Street, Varadharajapuram, Ambattur, had filed a complaint that Rs 8 lakh kept in a locker at his house was stolen on August 20.

During the inquiry, his wife told the police that she had seen a woman leaving their house and when questioned, the woman claimed she had come to inquire about providing medical insurance and walked away quickly. Based on the complaint, Ambattur police registered a case and examined CCTV footage from the locality. The footage showed a woman conducting recce of houses in the area. A special team was formed to nab the culprit.

After analysing several hours of CCTV footage, the special team traced her to Coimbatore where she was hiding and brought her to Ambattur police station. During interrogation, Kokila confessed that she used to specifically target houses where senior citizens lived alone, keeping a watch on their movements before breaking in.

She told police that she had donated Rs 20,000 from the robbed money as an offering at the Tiruttani Murugan Temple. Police said they have recovered only Rs 4 lakh out of the total Rs 8 lakh stolen. The remaining amount had been spent by the accused, police said.