April 17, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1429

LONDON, April 16: Armed robbers stole designer watches worth 700,000 pounds in simultaneous daytime raids on two upmarket department stores in Manchester on Wednesday.

Two men carrying claw hammers smashed display cases at Selfridges, while a third filled a bag with watches worth 400,000 pounds.

At the same time, two men wearing motorcycle helmets attacked a security guard at the nearby Harvey Nichols store, broke cabinets with hammers and stole watches worth 300,000 pounds.

Both stores in the city’s Exchange Square shopping district were open at the time, but no customers were injured.

The five men escaped in a stolen red Ford Transit van before switching to an unknown getaway car.

Detective Sergeant Dave Turner, of Manchester Police, said: “This incident has left one man with minor injuries and a number of other people extremely distressed.

“These men seem to have had a clear plan of attack. They were after high-value pieces and knew which counters to target to find them.” He released descriptions of two of the three men who took part in the Selfridges raid. One was stocky, 5ft 10ins (178cm) tall, wearing a red fleece jacket.

The second was slightly smaller, wearing a white high-visibility jacket. There was no description of the third man.—Reuters