CUTTACK: Police on Friday arrested a mother-son duo in connection with a theft of Rs 40 lakh from a doctor's house here.The accused had allegedly stolen Rs 40 lakh on August 28 from Balikuda located residence of Dr Bibhuti Bhusan Nayak , who works as an associate professor in plastic surgery department of SCB Medical College and Hospital. He also runs a private nursing home at Balikuda.The prime accused Padma alias Netramani Patra(52) was working as maid servant in the doctor's residence since last four months. She was staying in the house and had complete access to all rooms. She had cunningly prepared a duplicate key of the cupboard in which the doctor kept his money and was taking out money at regular intervals.After stealing the money, Padma used to throw it out of the window and her son Akshaya Patra , who stays at Bengali Sahi, used to collect it. However, on August 28 when Padma saw huge amount of money in the cupboard she could not control her greed. When the doctor and his wife were not present in the house, she entered the room through a window, looted Rs 40 lakh from the cupboard and handed it over to her son."To avoid any suspicion, Padma stayed back at the doctor's house even after the theft and was doing household works as usual. Whenever we asked her anything about the theft she gave variety of statements which reinforced our suspicion on her," said ACP, Nimai Charan Sethi.During interrogation, Padma disclosed her modus operandi and involvement of her son in the theft.Police have recovered Rs 31,97,850 cash, gold ornaments worth Rs 7 lakh, an electronic locker and mobile phones, which the mother-son duo had purchased from the stolen money, from the miscreants.However, the fact that the doctor had kept such huge amount of money in his house has raised many eyebrows. Police officials are also trying to verify the source of the money. "The doctor told us that he had kept the money collected from his private hospital at residence for admission of his daughter. Adding to it, he was not able to deposit money in bank as he was busy. We are verifying the facts," said a senior police officer.

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