Bengaluru mobile store heist: Burglar reveals before cops why he broke in completely naked

Representative image

A 27-year-old man on May 9 entered a mobile phone shop completely naked, except for a mask and looted several mobile phones from the shop.

The theft occurred in the early hours of May 9 at Hanuman Telecom in Hongasandra, South Bengaluru. Police were initially puzzled by the nature of the crime and believed it might have been committed by a professional gang. But they found a man, completely nude and wearing only a face mask, crawling through a small hole in the wall, when they examined the CCTV.

The accused, identified as Imranullah, hailing from Assam, had broken into the shop through a two-foot-wide hole. “I had just bought new clothes and didn’t want to spoil them while crawling through the hole,” he told police.

The burglary took place between 1.30 am and 3 am, when the shop owner Dinesh, originally from Rajasthan, was out of town due to a family emergency, TPO reported. The next day, around 4 pm, Dinesh checked the CCTV footage remotely and saw the break-in. He alerted his friend Vasanaram, who works at a nearby mobile store on Hosa Road.

“I rushed to the shop and saw the hole in the wall. Several expensive phones were missing. I immediately informed the police,” TOI quoted Vasanaram as saying.

According to the police, Imranullah entered the store, and another person with him stayed outside as a lookout. Imranullah used the torch on his phone instead of turning on the lights, and carefully picked only the expensive phones, avoiding cheaper ones.

Police arrested Imranullah the following day. He admitted that he needed money to buy gifts for his girlfriend and planned to sell the stolen phones on the black market.

“He came prepared. The hole was just big enough for someone of his size. He knew where the valuable phones were and avoided the cameras. Despite the odd approach, it was a planned act,” TOI quoted a senior police officer as saying.

Forensic teams collected evidence from the shop, and the police are now searching for the second accused. A case has been registered under sections 331 (housebreaking) and 305 (theft in a dwelling place) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.