Gas cylinder, secured with chains, stolen from watchman's home in Madhya Pradesh

A masked man allegedly pushed a woman and fled with an LPG cylinder from a watchman's quarters in Indore, leaving residents shaken and forcing neighbours to chain their cylinders inside their homes.

A quiet afternoon at a watchman’s quarters in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore turned into a shocking episode when a masked man allegedly pushed a woman aside and walked away with a gas cylinder from her kitchen, even though it had been secured with chains, leaving residents shaken and scrambling to chain their own cylinders for safety.

The unusual theft has unfolded in the Khajrana police station area of Indore, where two labourer couples work as watchmen and live in servant quarters in the Velvet Garden locality. For families already living cautiously, the fear of losing something as essential as a cooking gas cylinder had forced them to secure the cylinders with iron chains and locks inside their homes.

But even that was not enough.

Manju Bai, one of the residents, recalls the moment a stranger appeared at her doorstep. It was during a period when people were standing in long queues outside LPG agencies to get cylinders.

According to her, a young man arrived with his face covered with a cloth and asked to speak to her husband, calling him by name.

“He came to the house and said he wanted to talk to my husband,” Manju Bai said. “But I did not give him any information.”