Rat steals Rs 13,000 from grocery store in East Midnapore

In a curious case of robbery, a rat stole Rs 13,000 from the drawer of a grocery store in East Midnapore.

The rat gnawed the bills through the gap in the cash drawer and stored them in his 'house'. The entire act was recorded on the store's CCTV cameras. The lucky owner thus managed to get Rs 12,700 intact from the rat hole.

Amal Kumar Maity, a shop owner in Tamluk Market, closed his establishment as usual on Wednesday evening. “The next morning I came to my shop around nine o'clock only to find the notes missing from the cash drawer. I have an employee who stays at the store at night. I didn't doubt him because I trust him. The drawer lock was intact and I had the key,'' Maity said.

Maity told other traders about the missing cash. And they gathered in his shop. They talked about the problem and finally decided to file a police complaint. “But before we went to the local police station, we decided to examine the CCTV footage. When we did, we found nothing suspicious. We were frustrated. Then one of my business colleagues asked me to scrutinize the record once more,” said Maity.

Four CCTV cameras are installed in the store. Traders began to go through the footage thoroughly."We were about to finish watching the CCTV footage and suddenly one of the traders asked me to pause and rewind the footage from one of the cameras. When we watched it again we were all scared. It must have been around 7:00 in the morning." and the rat was seen nibbling the money, going into the hole, and disappearing. She soon came out again and went to the money drawer. She would take bills, sometimes one and sometimes a lot, and go into the hole to deposit the money,'' Maity recalled.

Maity and others then found a hole inside and started digging. "We recovered Rs 12,700 from the hole. But Rs 300 is still missing. I never imagined such an incident could happen," he said.