Surat: Rs 4.76 lakh was stolen from an establishment of the Rajhans (Desai-Jain) Group that houses two restaurants in the Dumas area of the city in the early hours of Monday, after a thief broke the lock of one of the restaurants. Police have got CCTV footage of the theft and have begun an investigation.
According to a complaint filed by Ojas Pandya, associate vice-president (hospitality) of the Rajhans (Desai-Jain) Group, their company runs restaurants called Sizzling Salsa and Enjoy, in the Rajhans Montessa complex near the airport on Dumas Road. Both have different managers and 60 people work in the restaurants. While the restaurants have separate entrances they have a common door at the back.
After the restaurants closed late on Sunday night, the managers Uttam Let and Sahdev Nayak locked the main doors of their restaurants, while a worker named Nippu Turi locked the common door at the back.
On Monday morning, a worker called Kailash Turi who was to unlock the common door found it already unlocked. He thought someone may have opened it and started working. At about 10am, a housekeeping worker called Dwarka Das opened the Sizzling Salsa door, while Deepak Kamar opened the Enjoy door. Both started working as usual.
At about 11.30am, Ashish, the cashier of Enjoy, arrived and found the lock on the cash counter broken. He immediately called his manager, Let. Both went to Sizzling Salsa and found the cash counter broken into there as well.
Pandya checked CCTV footage saw a person breaking through the common door of the restaurants at about 2.25am with some instrument and entered Sizzling Salsa first. The thief stole Rs 2.49 lakh its cash counter. He then entered Enjoy through the kitchen area and stole Rs 2.27 lakh from its cash counter.
Dumas police filed a case for theft and criminal trespassing and began an investigation.
