Cigarettes worth Rs 16 lakh stolen from godown

Puttur, Aug 21: An incident where thieves broke into a cigarette wholesale dealer's godown and made away with bundles of cigarettes worth Rs 16.24 lakh from the godown located in Kallare in Puttur late on Wednesday night.

The theft was discovered when the godown employees arrived at the godown at 8.45 a.m. on Thursday morning.

The cigarette godown belonged to a businessman Pushparaj Shetty from Kallare. It is been reported that cigarette packets of various brands manufactured by the company ITC Limited were stolen from the godown worth Rs 16,24,827.

As soon as the police were informed of the theft, Puttur Town police inspector Mahesh Prasad and sub inspectors Abdul Khader and Gangadharappa visited the spot and began conducting investigation. The investigating police suspect the job of professional robbers with knowledge of the movement of cigarette consignments. It is also suspected that the robbers arrived and hauled the stolen goods in a vehicle.

The robbers had damaged the CCTV camera installed outside the rolling shutter, but however, the one installed inside the godown succeeded in capturing their visuals. The police believe that the visuals captured will be helpful in nabbing the culprits.

The police dog squad was also presses into action to trace the culprits.

A previous robbery

Cigarette bundles worth Rs 17 lakh belonging to Pushparaj Shetty had been stolen from a lorry by miscreants last year in Hassan. Two persons had been identified as the accused in the theft last year. But the accused have not been caught till date. The police suspect that the same accused may have been involved in the godown theft.

Puttur town police have registered a case and formed three search teams to investigate the theft and nab the culprits.