The three men, who have been caught on CCTV cameras, tied up the senior citizens’ limbs, gagged them and fled with gold ornaments worth Rs 2 lakh and an unspecified amount of cash. This is the third murder of a senior citizen in the city in six months and it has sparked fear among locals, many of who are senior citizens living alone. The elderly woman’s death, possibly due to suffocation from the gagging, has left the husband “traumatised and terrorised”, a police officer said, adding, “The elderly man was unable to narrate the sequence of events while filing the FIR.”
Burglars possibly got info about ‘soft target’: Cops
A 70-year-old woman died hours after she and her husband were gagged and tied up by three burglars. The three barged into the Agarwals’ Tardeo house between 6.30am and 7.15am but the incident came to light around 8.30am when the elderly man managed to free himself and raised an alarm. Hearing his cries, a neighbour rushed to the flat and alerted the couple’s children and the police.
The elderly couple was rushed to Nair Hospital where Surekha died minutes after admission while Madan was treated for injuries and discharged. He told the police that he had woken up around 6.30am for his morning walk. No sooner had he opened the main door than three men, lying in wait right outside, pushed him in and barged into the flat, said the officer. They bolted the main and safety doors and tied up the old man with a rope and adhesive tape and gagged him. One went inside where Surekha was asleep on the bed. They took her by surprise, and also trussed her up and put tape on her mouth. “Her nose got covered with the tape and so she was gasping,” a police officer quoted the elderly man as saying. The officer said that the three men searched for valuables in the house and laid their hands on gold ornaments and cash from the cupboard and fled. In the CCTV, the three accused men, while leaving the building, are seen bumping into a maid who was on her way to work at a flat on the first floor.
“The three robbers do not look like they are from Mumbai…,” said a police source. “Possible someone had tipped them off that the elderly couple was an easy target.” The initial investigation indicates that the accused had done a recce and learnt that Madan used to go for a morning walk, said the police. Occupants of two flats next to the Agarwals’ home were away on Sunday. Surekha is survived by two sons and a daughter who live in Wadala. The elderly couple occupied the 3-bedroom-hall flat on the third floor of Yusuf Manzil. The family runs an imitation jewellery business in south Mumbai. The incident has sparked fear in the locality as there are several senior citizens who live alone in the adjacent Parsi colony.
