Chennai: A taser (an electroshock weapon used as a protective device) made an appearance for the first time in the city crime scene with a final-year engineering student using it to rob a 74-year-old woman in broad daylight at her provision store in Alandur on Monday.
T. Praveen Kumar (21) was subsequently chased by locals and treated to mob justice before being handed over to the police. V. Lalitha (74) who was subjected to shock (literally) is yet to come out of it. Her left ear is bandaged and she mistakes her customers as well-wishers of the boy, approaching her to retract the case against him. The boy, a final-year student at a private engineering college in Karapakkam, resides at Subramaniakoil Street in Alandur, a few blocks from Lalitha’s provision store on Egambara Duffedar street.
The police are appalled by the college student’s adverse use of technology. “Investigations revealed that he got the device shipped through an online shopping portal through a friend in Salem,” an investigating official said, exasperated at students stooping so low for money.
Around 2.30 pm on Monday, Lalitha was at her provision store, V.L. Milk Centre, in the same compound of her house in Alandur when Praveen Kumar came in the guise of a customer. “He had a kerchief tied around his face and asked for eggs and then a packet of noodles. After I gave him the items, he explored his bag as if reaching for a wallet,” she recalls.
The boy took out the taser device, pushed the woman to the chair and directed the device against her left ear. The lady says that she felt dizzy for a few seconds, but managed to push the boy down even as blood was oozing from her ear as a result of the boy’s attempt to snatch the earring.
“The boy took to his feet and I managed to cry for help. Two locals chased him through the lanes and caught him. The boy initially pleaded innocence,” Lalitha said. Police personnel from St Thomas Mount police station took custody of the boy, recovered two devices from him before remanding him to custody. Lalitha usually covers for regular staff in the afternoon. Henceforth, she will be careful, she said.
