Visakhapatnam: Vizag city police are witnessing a bizarre trend in thefts: human hair, which has spawned a flourishing market around the world. Robbers on Sunday night made off with 10 bags of special grade human hair, worth around Rs 10 lakh, from the Varaha Lakshmi Narsinga Swamy temple in the premises of the Simhachalam temple. The temple gets thousands of pilgrims every day from various parts of Andhra Pradesh, neighbouring Odisha and Chhattisgarh, who tonsure their heads, the hair being an offering to the deity.
The staff of the Kesh Kandana Sala (tonsuring centre) of the temple would collect the hair, segregate according to length and quality and store away to sell to exporters through an auction. Executive officer of Simhachalam temple K. Ramachandra Mohan said that nearly 15 bags of special grade human hair were stored in a room near the Kesh Kandana Sala of the temple and the criminal gang took away 10 of them, weighing around 160 kg.
The Gopalapatnam police inspected the crime spot and pressed the clues team and dog squad into action. DCP (ZonaI) Dr G Ram Gopal Naik said that preliminary investigations revealed that insiders had had a hand as the robbery occurred when the security guards were posted outside the building. Sources said that the robbers entered the store room of the building from the terrace, using a rope. Later, they cut the grill door of the terrace, came to the first floor, where they unscrewed the pivot to gain entry into the store room that had the bags.
