Pune:
A mobile store owner was looted in a most unusual of the modus operandi when he went to work on Wednesday morning.
Uday Pakkala (28), hailing from Chinchwad, was surprised to see keyholes of the three locks of his shop stuffed with matchsticks when he reached his shop at Thermax Chowk around 9.40 am. As he bent down to take out the sticks, a robber flicked away his bag containing Rs 1.41 lakh.
According to Station Duty Officer AP Bhalerao, "The victim had some work in the shop after which he was going to a co-operative bank to deposit the sum. He was carrying the cash in a carry bag and was accompanied by a friend, when they saw matchsticks inserted in the locks keyholes. They wanted to open the shop's shutter and started removing the sticks from the locks. While doing so, Pakkala kept the bag down. That is when an unidentified accused grabbed the opportunity and ran away with the bag."
Pakkala said, "The bag was flicked within 30 seconds and we couldn't even see how. There were a lot of costly handsets. The bag also contained cheques that were to be paid to the electronic goods dealers."