Going to the office? Ensure your parents are safe

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: People in the IT city need to be more careful to ensure the safety of their elderly parents before going to work each day. With the robbery and burglary cases on the rise, ensuring the safety of families, especially older people, has become a matter of concern here.

A 57-year-old woman was recently found gagged and tied up inside her own house after a gang of unidentified persons broke into the house and made away with cash and valuables worth Rs 7.5 lakh. The matter came to light when the woman's daughter, a doctor, returned from her clinic in the evening and found her mother lying in a pitiable condition.

Dr Vaishnavi had been residing with her mother, Lakshmi, in Kumaraswamy Layout in the city. She runs a clinic just two kilometers from her house to take care of her mother. She also claimed that her mother had suffered from health issues for several months. Following the incident, she approached the jurisdictional police and registered a complaint.

In her statement to the police, Dr Vaishnavi said that she had been following particular work timings to ensure she spent time with her ailing mother despite her otherwise busy professional life. "I would leave home every day around 10:30 am and would return by 1 pm. Then, in the evening again, I open the clinic around 5 pm and close it by 9 pm," Dr Vaishnavi said.

However, on Tuesday around 5:50 pm while she was at her clinic, Dr Vaishnavi received a distress call from her mother informing her that some robbers had entered their house. She rushed to her house and noticed her mother gagged and tied up using tapes and ropes.

The complainant further alleged that the assailants stole Rs 3.5 lakh in cash and jewellery worth Rs 4 lakh from her house. The Kumaraswamy Layout police have launched a probe to identify and arrest the assailants.