Mid Day  
 
Mumbai, Aug 20: As the Makhija family saw Shah Rukh Khan guide the India women’s hockey team to victory in Chak De India at Roxy in Charni Road, their servant Raju Charan (23) allegedly cleaned their Worli flat of valuables worth Rs 80 lakh on Saturday August 18.

Raju, now absconding, was introduced to the family by an ex-servant Vishnu on Thursday.

The Makhijas, who run a cloth-manufacturing unit near Lower Parel and live in Lokhandwala towers, Worli, have neither photograph nor address of the suspect.

Said a woman in the family, “I did think of paying him to get himself photographed. Somehow, I never got around to doing it. We never allowed him to stay inside the flat. He slept outside.”

Hide and seek

The police suspect that Raju may have hid inside the flat, after knowing that the family would be out and later committed the theft and fled. Said Additional Commissioner of Police (South) Region Dr K Venkatesham, “One should never hire domestic helps or let people in for civil or interior work unless they are recommended by a trusted acquaintance. If citizens are a little alert, it is very easy to nab such offenders.”

Said Mumbai police commissioner D N Jadhav, “We hold regular meetings with residents of co-operative housing societies and caution them but educated people continue to be cheated by crooks who use old tricks.”