Bantwal: Two members of a family were tied up and tortured by miscreants who barged into their house to eke out details of a ‘hidden treasure’ at Arasalike of Korapady village in Bantwal during wee hours of Tuesday.

Vignaraja Bhat, the owner of the house and his family were beaten black and blue by over nine men who came to their house in an Innova and an alto vehicles at about 2.30 am on Tuesday. The gang broke open the door of the house and first tied up Vignaraja Bhat and his nephew Vivek Bhat and then tortured them to reveal the location of the treasure. Noticing that a CCTV camera was installed outside the dilapidated house of Bhat, the gang then started excavating the pocket right near the camera, suspecting that the camera may have been installed to keep an eye on the treasure. However, all efforts went in vain as nothing was recovered.

The Tuesday’s incident has its root going back to about 40-years-ago when a seer had told Vignaraj Bhat’s father Ganapathi Bhat that the land where he is living has a hidden treasure. The news spread like wildfire and now the locals say that the attack on the family is a continuation to the same episode.

Bhat has said that couple of months ago some unknown persons were seen loitering near the house. He suspects that the same men must have executed the crime.

Later, another man had ventured into Bhat’s property with a sniffer. When the family members probed, he had straight away told that there is treasure in the land and left the place. Couple of weeks ago, another group had come to Bhat’s house on the pretext that their vehicle broke down on the road. Bhat had reported all the three incidents to the police and based on these complaints the police had suggested Bhat to install a camera in front of the house.

However, the gang that attacked on Tuesday, fled the scene with the camera. SP and jurisdictional police have visited the spot.