Nagpur: An 82-year-old woman, Rafiya Sharif, was battered with a wooden plank by dacoits who decamped with 11 tola gold worth Rs 15 lakh and Rs 10 lakh in cash. The goons ran amok in the house for 25 minutes after her son left their Ahbab Colony home, shortly before Thursday midnight. Rafiya suffered serious injuries on her eye, forehead and hands and lay bleeding before dragging herself outside.The goons wrenched out gold rings and bangles, leaving her fingers and wrist bruised and bleeding. Before fleeing with the booty, they forced Rafiya to wear imitation jewellery. A robbery FIR was registered at Gittikhadan police station even as the colony on Dinshaw Factory Road remained tense on Friday.Rafiya’s son, Raja, 36, a contractor, told police he returned from Dharampeth around 7pm and left home again at 11.23 pm after a friend called. A tall, lanky man in a red T-shirt slipped in through an open door, barely seven minutes after her son left. Neighbours later said the man had been waiting in ambush across the lane for nearly an hour. Soon, his accomplices went in.“My mother collapsed and briefly lost consciousness after being hit on the head,” Raja told TOI. When she regained her senses, the masked men were ransacking the house and emptying cupboards. When she tried to fight back, she was struck again with the plank. They pulled gold bangles of about six tolas from both wrists and snatched a gold neck chain of about five tolas. Raja later told police that Rs 9 lakh in cash withdrawn from a fixed deposit and another one lakh in cash were missing. No one knew the cash was in the house, he said.After the attack, Rafiya dragged herself out of the house and raised an alarm. A neighbour, Monish, said he saw three men in the age-group of 25-30 fleeing on two-wheelers, while the fourth escaped through a rear lane.After Rafiya’s elder son, Raza, 53, called Raja around midnight, the latter dialled 112 and rushed his friends to the spot. They shifted her to Mayo Hospital.Gittikhadan police inspector Sarang Mirasi is investigating the case. Joint police commissioner Navinchandra Reddy and crime branch teams visited the Sharif house.Police are looking into the possibility of an inside job and are matching the strike with recent robberies. Raja has given names and numbers of men who did interior work at the house, and of a cook who regularly visits the household. Investigators are probing whether someone who knew Rafiya’s routine, and the cash kept at home, tipped off the gang. The key CCTV camera opposite the house had developed a snag, but cops managed to collect footage.
