Pawnbroker killed in Kanchi

Chennai: In a shocking daylight murder, a 51-year-old pawnbroker was strangled to death by four-member gang to loot the gold and silver from his shop in busy Jawaharlal Nehru market in neighbouring Kancheepuram district on Thursday.

The exact value of the gold looted from the shop is not immediately known.

According to the police, a customer who visited the shop found Gowhtam Raj, struggling for his life in his vault room. “His hands and legs were tied, he was gagged and strangulated. Though he was immediately taken to hospital, the medical team declared him dead on arrival,” the police said.

Gotham Raj lived in the same market area in Periyakancheepuram. On Thursday he was cleaning the shop ahead of Deepavali festival. There was no other employee present in the shop as he managed the show all alone. The victim was running the shop for the last three decades.

His family members too run similar shops in the neighbourhood.

The vault room is where the shop owner usually kept all his valuables. Police said the deceased had kept all the pledged jewelries in the vault room apart from law valued gold display ornaments.

It looks like four men had come posing as customers and followed him to the vault room where he was murdered at around 1.30 pm.

The killers had vanished with unspecified quantity of gold and silver articles without being noticed.

There was no CCTV camera in the shop and the police sniffer dog could not help much because it ran for 500 metres and returned.