HYDERABAD : Five youngsters claiming themselves to be naxalites took away gold and cash, all worth Rs. 4.5 lakhs, from a software engineer at gunpoint at his house in Yapral of Alwal on Thursday night.

Police believe that the offenders were not naxals and the weapons they threatened the engineer with must be toys. The gang of five, apparently waiting outside, entered the house following the car of Murali Krishna, 36, when he drove in to his house at Sree Devi Kalyaninagar around 9 p.m.

Alarm raised

As soon as Murali Krishna got down, the intruders lunged at him holding guns to his head. While two of them waited outside watching out for visitors, the other three hurried him into the house.

The engineer's son and wife, seeing the strangers threatening him, raised an alarm.

"So clever were the robbers that two of them standing outside convinced the neighbours, who rushed to the engineer's house to find out what had happened, that they were Murali Krishna's relatives," Alwal Inspector Krishna Reddy said on Friday morning.

Later, the robbers told him that they were Maoists belonging to a splinter group and came there to collect funds for securing arms and for educating the poor. Then, the offenders made the engineer search every nook and corner of the house and take out all the valuables he had. After collecting Rs. 40,000, they quietly walked away.

It was only after the robbers left did the engineer realise that they had also taken away the entire gold and two mobile phones from the house.

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