Dhenkanal: An elderly couple faced a terrifying ordeal late Monday night when a gang of armed robbers broke into their residence at Saanda village under Parjang police limits in Odisha’s Dhekanal district, and decamped with cash, mobile phones, and gold jewellery worth around Rs 15 lakh.
The victims, Suresh Chandra Pani, a retired librarian, and his wife, Reena, a schoolteacher, were asleep on the first floor of their two-story home while the ground floor was rented out. To evade detection, three masked intruders bypassed the front-facing CCTV cameras by entering from the rear of the property. The miscreants cut through a wire fence, scaled a ladder to the balcony, forced open a fibre door, and damaged a security camera before entering the residence.
Once inside, the intruders confronted the couple, physically assaulting them and threatening them with sharp weapons, including ‘khanda’ and ‘bhujali’. The assailants covered the couple’s faces with blankets to muffle their cries, forcibly snatched a gold chain, and demanded the keys to the almirah. After ransacking the storage units, the gang made off with Rs 5,000 in cash, two mobile phones, and substantial gold ornaments before locking the traumatised couple inside the room.
The miscreants later discarded the stolen mobile phones, one near Saanda Shiva Temple and the other near Kantio Kateni, with initial evidence suggesting they fled toward the Pandua area.
Alerted by family members shortly after the incident, a team from the Parjang police station arrived on the scene to gather forensic evidence. A manhunt has been launched nab the miscreants.
