Varanasi: Beating the scorching June heat, unidentified burglars allegedly switched on the air-conditioner inside a locked house in Varanasi and spent nearly three hours in comfort before escaping with gold and silver jewellery worth crores of rupees, Rs 1.90 lakh in cash, and CCTV equipment.The daring theft took place on the night of June 2 at the Ganeshpur residence of a travel agency owner, Vinod Kumar, under Shivpur police station limits. The family was away in Bihar to attend a post-death ritual of a relative.After inspecting the crime scene, ACP (Cantt) Apurva Pandey said on Saturday that the initial investigation revealed that the thieves switched on AC to operate comfortably for almost 3 hours.He said the value of the stolen cash, jewellery and other valuables has so far been estimated at around Rs 1.5 crore. However, investigators believe the figure could rise further as homeowner Vinod Kumar is still compiling details of valuables kept in the house.The probe revealed that Kumar, who previously ran a tractor dealership before entering the travel business in 2018, had constructed the Ganeshpur house in 2022 and lived there with his wife. Their son works in Gurugram, while their daughter resides in Meerut with her husband, a senior GST officer. Apart from the jewellery belonging to Kumar’s wife, valuables owned by other family members had also been kept in the house, significantly increasing the scale of the loss.Before leaving for Bihar, Kumar had relied on a CCTV surveillance system linked to his mobile phone to monitor the property remotely. According to investigators, he noticed on June 2 that the CCTV feed had suddenly gone offline. However, occupied with the family function, he did not immediately suspect foul play.It was not until June 4 that Kumar, concerned about the prolonged disruption of the CCTV feed, asked his neighbours to inspect the property. Their findings confirmed his worst fears — the main doors had been broken open and the house appeared to have been burgled. Kumar immediately returned to Varanasi and informed the police.A subsequent inspection revealed that the intruders had systematically ransacked the residence, making away with large quantities of jewellery, cash and the CCTV surveillance equipment, apparently in an attempt to erase evidence of the crime.
