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Ghost burglaries
 In
all burglaries, the 'point of entry' is an important factor for the policeman to solve the cases and detect the criminals. The point through which
the criminals enter into the houses or offices to involve in burglaries would
give a lot of clues to the policemen, so that the case would be detected with
consumable ease.
The fingerprint experts would
concentrate mainly on the point of entry as the criminals, while breaking the
locks and doors, would easily leave their fingerprint clues.
Moreover,
every criminal would follow a specific mode of entry to enter in to the place of
burglary and by studying these methods of entry itself the policemen can solve
many burglaries.
But there are some cases in
which the policemen could not ascertain the entry point through which the
burglars could have entered into the place of burglary. The criminals, in such
cases, would have entered very cautiously not to leave any chance for the
policemen to make any guesses.
A few years ago, the owner of
an electronic shop had opened the shop during the morning and to his surprise a
hefty amount of cash was found burgled from the cash box, but the door and the lock
was very much intact without any evidence of being tempered.
There
was also no way from the back of the shop. On studying the door and lock the chances of using any false keys had also
been ruled out and the policemen were at their wits' end and could not
ascertain how the criminal had entered into the shop and committed the offence.
 In some of the very big offices
and shopping complexes too, such type of 'no entry' burglaries had occurred and
later it was ascertained from the criminals that they had hidden inside these
premises during the previous night and after committing the burglaries had come
out stealthily when the shops and offices were opened during the next day.
Recently, during the first week
of January 2004, at Valsaravakkam, near Chennai, the manager of an office,
dealing leather goods, preferred a complaint with the police. During the previous
day, some of the staff had engaged in the work of distribution of salaries to
the workers.
They had put the currencies in
the cover for each of the 250 staff members. Since the process could not be
completed within the working hours, the manager had asked the staff to take the
salary the next day.
By keeping all the salary
covers in the office the manager had locked the office and gone away. When the office was opened
the next day the manager was shocked to see that all the covers were emptied and the
salary amount, totalling nearly Rs 7 lakh were found to be burgled and the
locks, doors were all very much intact.
 Police
wondered how the criminal had entered and made his way
out. Since there was no trace of anyone entering the office, police at first
suspected the manager, whether he had stage-managed the
case and misappropriated the money.
When their suspicion could not
be strengthened, the policemen's eyes naturally fell on 10 employees who had handled
and arranged the salary amount during the previous day. All these innocents were
treated in the usual police style, but no useful
clues came out.
A day later, the policemen
received a phone call from a resident stating that a bag containing some
suspicious substance was placed on the wall of his bathroom and as he suspected
to be a bomb, he sought the help of the policemen.
When the policemen went to the
spot and examined the bag, to their surprise, it was full of currencies, the
numbers of which were tallied with the lost salary currencies.
Interrogation had revealed that
a sweeper working in the leather office, on knowing that the salary amount was
kept in the office, came to the office late at night and by removing a glass
window had entered into the office and burgled the entire salary amount.
After
coming out he re-fixed the glass window and tightened the screws properly so
that everyone, including the police, would not know how he had entered and
committed the offence. He took the
cash in a bag and kept it on the wall of his bathroom and since the neighbour's
bathroom was also on the side of it, on noticing
the bag and suspecting it to be a bomb, the neighbour had informed the police and,
luckily, all the 250 employees got back their salary
money in time.
When anyone's vehicle
enters a 'No entry' area, it is always an easy task for the policemen either
to book the violators or collect mammol conveniently. But in the case of such
'no entry' crimes police always have a tough task.
Harvey
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