Cuddalore: Hiding cash in a sack of rice cost a shopkeeper dear in Tamil Nadu's Cuddalore district as it was mistakenly sold off to a customer who allegedly refused to return Rs 5 lakh to him.
Shopkeeper, Shanmugam (40), a resident of Vadalur Raghavendra city, lodged a complaint at Vadalur police station against the customer.
In his complaint, Shanmugam said that he runs a rice shop on the Vadalur-Neyveli main road for many years. On Sunday, he had hidden Rs 15 lakh in a sack of rice in the shop.
"When I was not at the shop on Monday, Poopalan (62) from Melpadi village near Mandharakuppam, came to buy 10 kg rice. My brother-in-law, Srinivasan was at the shop and added more rice to the sack, where I had hidden the cash, and sold it off," the complainant told.
Meanwhile, when Shanmugam returned to his shop a few hours later, he was shocked to find the sack missing. When Srinivasan inquired about it, his brother-in-law said that the sack was sold off to Poopalan, a regular customer at this shop.
It was then that Shanmugam revealed that he had hidden Rs 15 lakh in that sack. After this, they traced the customer's address as the payment was made through Gpay and went to Poopalan's house.
They reached the customer's house and told that the sack of rice purchased from their shop contained Rs 15 lakh. However, Poopalan's daughter came out with Rs 10 lakh claiming that she did not find any more currency notes in the sack.
This led to a heated argument between Shanmugam and the customer's daughter but the latter continued to stress that she had found only Rs 10 lakh inside the sack. After this, both Shanmugam and Srinivasan left the house and lodged a complaint at the Vadalur police station. Based on the complaint, investigations were initiated.
Shanmugam said, "I do not use cash drawer and instead store money in a sack of rice for fear of thieves."
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