Mangalore: Crime alert! Robbers in guise of police strike city, target women
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, Mar 24: For the fourth time in the last two days in the twin coastal districts, robbers posing as CBI officers or police have looted women of their gold. The presence of such a gang had been reported earlier in places like Bangalore, but now they seem to have struck the coastal region too.
Women in Mangalore and Udupi have fallen prey to conmen who claim to be officers and scare them with a yarn about a 'murder' or some other crime in the area and tell them to keep their gold in their bags. The gullible women do as they are told, only to realize later that they had been fooled.
Similar incidents were reported in the city at Kottara on Friday March 22 and at Kodialbail V T Road and Ballalbagh on Saturday March 23.
On Saturday, Sumati (60) was on her way to give lunch box to her grandson at Canara High School, when two persons who were standing next to a bike called out to her and said that they were policemen in muftis. "A teacher by name Sharada has been murdered in this area. We are going to guard this area for two days. You are not allowed to wear gold while passing this area," they reportedly told her.
At that moment a third person (an accomplice) came to the spot and removed his gold chain and put it in his pocket. Sumati thought that when men themselves take such 'precaution', she too must do so, and removed her gold chain weighing two sovereigns, two gold bangles each weighing one-and-a-half sovereigns, and put them on a paper held out by the men.
The men pretended to tie up the paper wrap and handed it over to Sumati, who placed it inside her bag. The robbers then fled the spot on their bike in a hurry. Sumati grew suspicious about the urgency in which they left, and checked the paper packet in her bag. To her utter shock, she found an artificial chain in place of her valuable gold ornaments.
Bunder police registered a case and investigations are on.
Also, Ballalbagh resident Bhavani (70) was looted in a simiar way, allegedly by the same gang which hoodwinked her with the murder story. She lost two gold bangles and a gold chain. A case was registered in Barke police station.
In another incident on Friday, near Infosys at Kottara, a woman identified as Leela Karanth lost gold ornaments worth Rs 1.4 lac to robbers in the guise of police. Luckily, the culprits' images have been captured by a CCTV at Infosys campus and the police have released the image of one of the accused.
Police have asked the public, especially women to be alert and inform them immediately if they come across the gang.