PATNA: A group of seven including two women on Monday entered a sand contractor’s house in eastern Bihar’s Lakhisarai district posing as income tax officials and robbed the family of ₹35 lakh including ₹25 lakh in cash, police said.

Police said the group reached Sanjay Kumar Singh’s house in a white sports utility vehicle at about 1.15pm when the contractor’s mother, wife and children were at home. They first cordoned off the three storey house. According to CCTV footage seized by the police, one of them stood guard at the entrance while the others went in.

The team had fake identity cards hanging around their necks, and their masks for Covid-19 were in place. Once inside, they told the family that they were going to seize the family’s firearm. Soon after, the team ‘seized’ the mobile phones and locked the children in a room.

The women were forced to sit in another room and told to handover the key to the iron almirah with a built-in safe. They couldn’t however, open the safe and ultimately had to break it open to access the cash and jewellery.

After the group left, Singh’s wife called her husband and file a complaint with the police.

“The police are searching for the crooks based on the CCTV footage”, said Lakhisarai SP Sushil Kumar.