I had planned one last raid

NEW DELHI, January 13: A priceless antique from the Rashtrapati Bhavan museum was sold off for Rs 20 to a kabariwallah in Loni Ghaziabad. Vinod, the man who confessed to having walked into the President8217;s Estate thrice and stealing museum artefacts there, said: 8220;I had planned just one more raid on the museum and then I would have been off to Calcutta to get married.8221; Does he have a girlfriend there? 8220;No. I was raising money to buy a woman. It is easy. Just costs Rs 2,000,8221; he told Express Newsline.

Sitting comfortably in the Crime Branch van, Vinod said that he was very depressed once he got to know of the true value of his loot. 8220;My goodness! I said to myself that all that money could have been mine. It was the newspapers which said that the stolen property was worth crores. All I got for the ones I sold was Rs 30,000. The fear of police made me hide all the remaining stuff,8221; he confessed, even as the curator of the Rashtrapati Bhavan museum, Pramod Ganpatya, shook his head in disbelief.

The thief8217; stood with his hands folded and head bowed in the courtroom this afternoon. He was a picture of despondency and kept blinking his eyes as if he understood nothing.

Moments later, when he was out of the courtroom, he beamed and posed for the Express Newsline cameraman. 8220;Go ahead take pictures of me with the police and the armed guard too. Get more people,8221; he said.

Vinod, 28, a Class X dropout, said: 8220;People talk while selling raddi and I learnt of the museum. I watched the movements of the policemen and entering the museum was easy. Just one latch.8221;

What did he do with the Rs 30,000 he made ? 8220;Smoked cigarettes and a lot of smack. I had even purchased a ticket to go to Calcutta with that money. 8221;