A thief in apartment: Jobless graduate steals valuables worth Rs 60.4L from locked flats in Bengaluru | Bengaluru News

Bengaluru: In an apartment complex bustling with software professionals and startup entrepreneurs, no one expected a thief to be living right next door. But residents of GM Infinity in Electronics City Phase 2 were left stunned when police arrested a 26-year-old man for pulling off a string of high-value thefts right under their noses.The accused is Nitesh Subbu, an unemployed graduate from West Bengal, who had been staying with his sister in the same apartment at Thirupalya. Police recovered around 641 grams of gold and 56 grams of silver ornaments, altogether worth Rs 60.4 lakh.Subbu, who previously worked as an assistant in a real estate firm, targeted three locked flats in the apartment.On the night of July 3, he broke into the house of professor Suresh Iyer, 62, who works at Dehradun in Uttarakhand. Suresh’s nephew filed a complaint with Hebbagodi police on June 5. Since her uncle had been working in Dehradun for the last four months, the house was locked, and his wife used to come to Bengaluru once in a few days. She locked the house on June 21 and went back to Dehradun. On June 4, Suresh’s wife received a call from a neighbour, who informed her that the front door of their house on the second floor was broken. She asked her nephew to rush to the house and check for valuables. Subbu’s sister stays in the adjacent block of Suresh’s. He broke open the main door, the wardrobe slide door, and the cupboard in the bedroom to steal gold and diamond ornaments.Police inspector Somashekar G and his team verified the CCTV camera footage and found a man wearing a T-shirt and shorts searching for something in front of a few flats. When detained for interrogation on Monday, Subbu confessed to the crime. Ring the bell and then search for keySubbu would ring the doorbell of the flat he is planning to target. If someone opens the door, he would give some excuses and leave. If there is no response, he would search for the key in the shoe rack or flowerpots. If he doesn’t find the key, he breaks open the door using an iron rod.Subbu committed similar thefts in two houses on the night of June 22. Police recovered the booty, including 621 grams of gold, 15.8 grams of diamond, 4.3 grams of platinum, 56 grams of silver, and Rs 28,000.Second storyDeep in debt, BCA graduate burgles houses & snatches goldA 27-year-old computer science graduate was arrested on charges of snatching a gold chain from a woman inside a crowded temple in the city.Police said Murthy KT of Hongasandra had burgled three houses in different parts of the city a few months ago.In his confession statement to police, Murthy said he lost more than Rs 20 lakh in online cricket betting and, hence, decided to break into locked houses. A native of Shivamogga, Murthy worked in a software company in Electronics City before quitting the job this year, police said.“On the evening of March 16 this year, a woman standing inside a temple near Binny Pet found that her gold chain weighing around 50 grams was stolen. Based on her complaint, we traced Murthy and recovered the chain. He stole valuables worth over Rs 15 lakh from three houses in Konanakunte, Avalahalli, and Suddaguntepalya in the first half of this year. He pledged the stolen gold ornaments to repay the loans taken to invest in online cricket betting,” an officer said.Police said Murthy’s father Annappa is said to have disposed of his property in Shivamogga to repay some of the loans made by him.