Parrots worth over Rs2m stolen from ex-DIG’s home

Raja Mumtaz turns hobby into lucrative business, loses hard work to burglar

KARACHI:

Approximately 41 valuable parrots, with an estimated worth exceeding Rs2 million, were reported stolen from the residence of a retired Deputy Inspector General (DIG) in Gulshan-e-Maymar. Upon receiving the information, the police promptly arrived at the scene to initiate an investigation and gather evidence.

The theft occurred at the house of Raja Mumtaz, a retired DIG of Prisons, situated in Gulshan-e-Maymar, Sector V2, within the jurisdiction of Gulshan-e-Maymar police station. The police called in a crime scene unit to collect evidence from the location.

Mumtaz had turned his hobby of keeping exotic birds into a lucrative business. However, a pet thief has left him with empty nest.

The ex-top cop of the prisons, responsible for keeping criminals behind bars, had put dozens of parrots in cages on his roof top. According to the Gulshan-e-Maymar SHO Waqar Qaiser, Mumtaz informed the police that the parrots were secure in their cages till 2:30 am. The theft occurred between 3am and 6am. He estimated the stolen parrots’ value to be more than Rs2 million.

Initial investigations indicate that the culprit gained access to the roof by scaling the wall of an adjacent house at the rear of Mumtaz’s residence. It appears that a single individual was involved in the late-night heist.

While there were no CCTV cameras on the retired DIG’s roof, neighbouring houses had surveillance cameras. Authorities are in the process of obtaining CCTV footage from these adjacent properties, with the hope of identifying the thief responsible for the parrot theft.

A formal theft case regarding the stolen parrots will be registered, and a thorough investigation will be conducted.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2023.