250 kg almirah with ₹6 lakh cash goes missing from Kanpur zoo in U.P.

The zoo cashier, who lodged the FIR with Nawabganj police, claimed that when he opened the office of the regional forest officer on Friday, he found the almirah missing from there

The Kanpur Zoological Park in Uttar Pradesh lodged a first information report (FIR) early on Saturday about the stealing of a 250 kg almirah containing around ₹6 lakh cash from the office of the regional forest officer (RFO).

In a statement, the zoo administration said the cash was to be deposited in bank on Friday but before it could be done, it was stolen. (For Representation)

In a statement, the zoo administration said the cash was to be deposited in the bank on Friday but before it could be done, it was stolen. Zoo cashier Brajesh Kumar Kamal, who lodged the FIR with Nawabganj police, claimed that when he opened the office of RFO Dilip Gupta on Friday, he found the almirah missing from there.

The CCTV camera facing the office was also found broken. The office where the incident took place is located in the administrative block of the zoo. Around ₹5.95 lakh collected from ticket sales on January 26 was kept in the almirah, he said.

ACP Akmal Khan said it was unlikely the safe was taken out of the zoo campus. “Not that the entire place is under CCTV surveillance it has four boundary walls and each of them is 15 feet high,” he said. The police have found that the thieves took out the chip from CCTV camera after breaking it.

It was suspected the safe was dumped in the artificial lake in the zoo, he added. Meanwhile, nine employees of zoo were being questioned in connection with the incident and one other was said to be missing.