A relative of the Lals points out at the empty jewellery boxes in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, July 26: Valuables alone cannot satiate the greed of thieves in the state capital nowadays. It seems they have developed a sweet tooth too as evident from a burglary that took place at Akashwani Marg early on Thursday.

Burglars broke into the single-storeyed house of the Lals under Rajiv Nagar police station and decamped with gold jewellery and Rs 6 lakh but not before gobbling three boxes of sweets from the refrigerator.

Umesh Lal, a public works department (PWD) engineer posted in Jehanabad district, was away in Ranchi on work, while wife Sadhna, son Rishabh (15) and daughter Priyadarshini (23) were present in the house at the time of the incident. “Priyadarshini, who recently got married, had returned to her parents’ place for a religious function on July 22. Two cooks were hired from outside to prepare food for a gathering of people on the occasion. Priyadarshini wore gold jewellery, brought from her in-laws’ place, on that day. We suspect that the jewellery must have drawn the attention of the cooks and they probably tipped off the gang of thieves,” a police officer at Rajiv Nagar police station told The Telegraph.

Sadhna said on Wednesday night, she was sleeping in one of the two bedrooms in the house along with her son and daughter with the air-conditioner on. “Around 2am, I woke up to a noise. I went to the other bedroom and checked. I found everything okay and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I found the door of our bedroom bolted from outside,” she told The Telegraph.

The Lals called up their part-time domestic help, who arrived and rescued the family members around 7am.

“Once outside, I rushed to the other bedroom to check out the steel cupboard in which all the jewellery was kept. We found it broken and all the ornaments missing. The entire room, along with the living room, was ransacked. Cash of Rs 20,000 and several valuables were missing too. Three empty sweet boxes, kept in the refrigerator last night, lay on the central table. The iron grille on a window in the living room had been removed. The burglars must have entered the house through there,” Sadhna added.

The police said the two cooks, engaged on the function day, would be detained for questioning. “The entire house has been ransacked, implying that they carried out the operation over a long time. Probe is on. The cooks could have passed on information to the gang which burgled the house,” another police officer said.

On December 21 last year, a gang of burglars had performed a puja at a Delwarganj house, which they had struck at, before decamping with Rs 5 lakh.