THE home of an elderly couple robbed by an armed gang may have been watched for some time before the terrifying raid, the family said.

The family home in Rouken Glen Road was thought to have targeted because the victim Bilqis’s husband Rafique Akber Chaudhry is raising money for a nearby community centre.

There was £4500 in the house, which was taken by the raiders.

The shocked victim Mrs Choudry, 69, of the armed robbery in East Renfrewshire told how three masked men burst into her house and demanded gold and cash.

Fayyaz Rahman said his mother-in-law is “traumatised, scared but otherwise okay”.

He said: “There’s someone staying with them all the time.”

Mr Rahman said it was is possible the raiders had been watching the address but that no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary beforehand.

He added: “They are retired businesspeople and now my father in law is a trustee of a charitable organisation and he deals with the finance side of the charity so we don’t know if there’s some link there or not.”

Police were examining any potential connection to a high-value theft which occurred close to the scene of the Giffnock robbery on the same night.

In the raid at the older couple's home, Mrs Choudry thought it was her grandson Faisel Rahman, who was transporting belongings from a garage at the rear of the property and had made several trips.

But three men, one of whom was carrying what looked like a screwdriver, then appeared in her lounge and demanded cash and jewellery.

She said: "I was talking on the phone to my friend and suddenly the line went dead. They had cut the phone line. I went to the other room and three men burst in.

"They told me to sit down and were asking, 'Where's your gold? Where's your passwords? Where's your money?'"

Mrs Choudry, who has three children, said she then heard the robbers break open a cabinet and was praying for her husband Mr Choudry, 73, to return as she heard things being broken in other rooms.

She added: "I just prayed to God and hoped everything would be okay."

The men were in her kitchen when she told them her son was coming, and two of them made their escape on to Rouken Glen Road where they were photographed fleeing in a dark grey Volvo driven by a fourth man.

The third man escaped on foot and he and the car were last seen heading in the direction of Eastwood Toll.

The thieves escaped with jewellery and around £2,000 of charity money which the family had raised for Woodfarm Education Centre.

Mr Rahman, 56, visited the couple after the robbery to comfort them following their ordeal.

He said: "The men were armed with screwdrivers, but they also had something in their hands which was covered with a rag.

“It could have been a knife or a screwdriver, it could have been anything."

The robbery happened at 5.30pm on Monday in Rouken Glen Road.

A Police spokesman said: "We are still appealing for any witnesses to come forward as it's a very busy road."

In the second incident a five-figure sum of cash and jewellery with a similar value was stolen from a house in Ellon Way, Paisley - around seven miles from the Giffnock property targeted - between 5.30pm and 9.30pm on Monday. No one was at home.