25YO held for stealing Rs. 33L from BHEL sub-post office

On 13 February, the police received a petition from Chauhan Shankar, the sub-postmaster at the BHEL sub-post office. He said the post office collected money from depositors and kept the cash in a chest. Every day postal officials of various post offices came to the post office and took money for their post offices. After work hours, they returned to the BHEL sub-post office and deposited the remaining amount. Mr. Shankar had withdrawn a large amount from the bank to distribute the TS Asara pension.

On the evening of 12 February, Mr. Shankar verified that Rs. 34.30 lakh was kept in the locked chest box. He had one of the keys and treasurer Vijay Kumar had the other. On 13 February, around 12.45 a.m, the post office watchman called him and said there was a fire at the post office. Mr. Shankar rushed to the spot. The fire department had also arrived to extinguish the blaze.

Later, it was discovered that the post office grills had been cut and the chest containing the cash had been broken. When the postmaster counted the cash, he found that only Rs. 1,00,695 was there in the chest. Somebody had stolen over Rs. 33 lakh. He suspected that someone had stolen the cash and set the post office on fire.

Based on the complaint, a case under various sections of the IPC was registered by the RC Puram police. The police collected and analysed CCTV footage and other technical evidence. They came to know that the accused Zaheer had fled to Goa after committing the crime. He had spent three days in Goa and returned to Hyderabad.

The police arrested Zaheer on Sunday and recovered Rs. 28,52,170 cash from him.