Over 10 shops looted in Egmore complex

Burglars hit a series of shops in the commercial complex opposite Egmore Museum and decamped with dozens of smartphones and a few lakhs in cash in the wee hours of Saturday. 

Absence of CCTV cameras and poor patrolling were understood to have made the job easy for the burglars, whose handiwork was not noted till one of the shop owners turned up to lift the shutters on Saturday morning. Moreover, the building was located just a stone’s throw from the buzzing Government Children’s Hospital where a police patrol vehicle remains parked for a good part of the night. 

Though sources said the burglars had broken in to 11 shops and made away with mobile phones and accessories worth Rs 17.5 lakh and around Rs 1 lakh in cash, Egmore station house officer (crime) claimed that only Rs 1.75 lakh cash and 30 mobile phones were stolen. 

Egmore police, who must have been on patrol duty on the same road during Friday night, told DTNext that the burglars had hit only three shops, including a mobile phone and a garment store, and they have sought a list of missing goods from the shop owners, one of whom (Kannan) had preferred a complain on Saturday morning.