A sangam of thieves

by Raja Ramakrishnan

The peace of our sleepy colony was broken recently by a large posse of police vans and policemen wandering around all over the place. The early morning walkers were surprised. Eventually the residents were shocked to hear that two houses had keen burgled – a place where no houses had been broken into before.

We learnt that a sangam had been formed nearby by a group of migrants to Chennai to help newcomers to settle down and get jobs. In fact, it was a group of small thieves who had no other skill. Many of them got educated, but their profession was unchanged. It gave them an immense satisfaction to challenge the Police.

The colony had houses, flats and offices with watchmen. Street vendors were common and one of the most popular was the man who sold hot sweet tea early in the morning. He was very popular with the watchmen for his tea and early mornings chats – a boon for the watchmen who had nobody to talk to all day and night. During such conversations, much information was exchanged. The tea men kept changing often but a new one was always there to replace the earlier one.

The thalaivar of the sangam was an all-powerful figure, the brain and strategist behind the break-ins. The gains were transferred to a jewellery shop by untraceable methods and converted to usable money. Burglary in the city had not been very remunerative, as security, police and public were very tight and city dwellers left very little in their houses in the form of jewellery – the conversion of which was their sangam’s specialty. So they specialised in ‘working’ in the expanding outskirts of the city where the pickings were for the asking.

Advance information gathering was essential both for the thieves and the police. Thalaivar’s strategy of tea vendors was a superb information-gathering method which he used to get new recruits to conduct house-breaks in vulnerable buildings in high-end parts of the city. If the trainees passed the test, then they were perfect for the outskirts.

The tea man had passed information to thalaivar about two houses for the picking in adjacent streets in this well-to-do colony. Both had the same door number. One was occupied only by the owner, his family being away. The other was occupied by an old couple and had the reputation of being a very confusing house. This was built by an architect with novel ideas, so it had all sorts of angles, confusing you and there would be sounds coming from unexpected places when you spoke.

Thalaivar decided to test a new trainee on one of these houses. Strict instructions were given: no injury to the occupants and no theft except for mobiles. The mobiles would give him a lot of contacts. If the trainee passed the test he would be good for anything.

The night was as usual a quiet uneventful one in the colony that was still recovering from The Flood. The trainee, MKV for short, made his way to the target house, managed to jump from a neighbouring balcony into the house, entered the empty office adjoining the bedroom, ransacked all the cupboards and strewed things around. He pocketed the mobile, wiped everything clean, and rearranged a porcelain figurine of ‘Speak no evil, Hear no evil, See no evil’ in a prominent place on the table. The owner got up hearing something, but MKV was gone.

While MKV was about to flee the colony, he spotted a house in the adjacent street with the same door number. Had he made a mistake and spoiled the good work he had done? Not to take a chance, he decided to enter this house also as there was time for a quick job. He tried the back door from an empty house at the back and when it didn’t open, he came to the front door, jammed the lock and opened the door. He stepped in to see a big room on the right and a small one on the left, full of artefacts but nothing of interest to him. He made his way up the narrow staircase into the living space with two bedrooms. He entered the first one, ransacked the cupboard and strewed everything around without taking anything. MKV then entered the second bedroom, where the old couple were snoring away. He opened the cupboards, strewed things around, and went to the table near the old man. Expensive watches and a wallet in an open drawer were there for the picking. He was sorely tempted to take the wallet for the credit cards, when there was a loud sound like a Big Bertha of World War 1 firing. It was the old lady snoring. He was just getting over it when there was an explosion from the old man passing wind. The sound was so loud that even the old lady turned around moaning. MKV was shocked and beat a quick retreat, picking up a mobile as he exited.

Inspecting the mobiles after he got away he was disgusted to find that the mobile phone from the first house was a camera. The second one was a mobile and opening the contacts, he spotted a woman’s name, and could not resist the temptation to call. The call went through to a city in Europe and when he heard English voices he switched off the phone. ‘That was a stupid thing to do. If Thalaivar ever finds out, I am done,’ thought MKV.

Next morning was mayhem with police all over the two burgled houses. They had responded with alacrity to the call. The situation of the colony next to VIP houses, and high profile residents, including Ministers, helped. The publicity of house-breaks in the area was bad publicity for the police. They investigated thoroughly but without success. The security was stepped up in the area, and the inspector-in-charge was left fuming over the thieves having scored over the police.

The old couple, after an initial period of shock, were soon back to normal. Their hackneyed arguments on the same subjects were replaced by a new one: ‘Who done it?’.

Thalaivar for his part was pleased with MKV’s report. He had a gem on his hands. And Thalaivar was informed by the tea wallah that everything was settling down.

The Inspector could not make head or tail of the affair till he heard of another housebreak in a different part of the city which was very similar, only a mobile being stolen. Was it a case of trying to collect information from the phone before it was wiped off? He passed on his idea to his bosses, but no one got anywhere. The house-breaks were on his mind till a murder in a tenement on the canal bank took his full attention.

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