Dacoits break into parish church in GH, loot cash

TURA: In what is feared to be a rerun of the dark days of last year when a string of robberies were perpetrated across several parishes in Garo Hills, a gang of criminals have once again broken into the office of a Catholic Parish Church in South West Garo Hills District on Wednesday night and robbed close to Rs 2 lakh. The incident took place when the entire region was in darkness due to load shedding.
The gang, numbering 10 people and armed with daggers, iron rods and lathis, broke open the gates of the compound of Good Shepherd Church Parish located at Chapahati village of Nogorpara shortly after 1:30 am when the entire region was in darkness due to the late night power cut. The church is barely 5 km from Mahendraganj international border.
“We were asleep and unaware of the break-in because there were no dogs to alert us. We found out only in the morning after seeing the broken doors and scanned the CCTV footage,” informed parish priest Rev. Fr. Theodore T Sangma while speaking to The Shillong Times.
According to the parish priest, the gang broke the locks of the outer and inner gates and made their way into the ground floor office of the parish where they forced open the drawers and took away close to Rs 2 lakh which was part of school funds, Sunday collection and savings belonging to villagers.
At the time of the robbery, there were around 15 students of Class X and staff members who were asleep in the upper floor of the building.
Inmates of the parish confine themselves inside the building after nightfall due to the menace of wild elephant intrusion since the past two months. In November, a herd of wild pachyderms broke into the compound and damaged property while in search of food. A villager was also trampled to death in the area, in the same month.
South Garo Hills police have launched an investigation and forensic teams have visited the scene of the crime and collected evidence as part of the inquiry.
Following the robbery, there is apprehension of a return of last year’s attacks by gangs of criminals who targeted churches in the months of January and February. At that time, armed and masked men targeted the Loyola Parish in Williamnagar leaving a priest tied to a chair after failing to get hard currency.
They also forced their way into the St. Dominic Savio Church in Garobadha, the Sacred Heart Church at Dalu and in Chokpot, all within a span of a few weeks, and took away money worth several lakhs. In all the cases, police were unsuccessful in nabbing the gang(s) behind the attacks.