The Hindu

• In the past few months, the city police have unearthed cases of women indulging in robberies and kidnappings

Bangalore, Feb 25: Instances of women indulging in crime appear to be on the rise in Bangalore as much as crimes against women.

A look at the criminal cases booked against women in the past few years show that they were hardly involved in more serious offences such as robberies and kidnappings. Involvement of women was limited to immoral trafficking and minor theft cases.

But in the past few months the city police have unearthed cases of women, along with their male accomplices, indulging in robberies as well as kidnappings.

For instance, late last year, a young woman, posing as a sub-inspector of police, waylaid a hotel accountant and robbed him of a gold chain and a gold ring on the busy Bull Temple Road.

Recently, the Cubbon Park police, who rescued a taxi driver from a gang of kidnappers, found that a woman had played an important role in the crime.

Around 11.30 p.m., Harish, the taxi driver, was returning home after dropping a passenger at the airport. While he was driving near Mayo Hall, a woman waved at him and asked for a lift.

As he stopped the vehicle, five of her accomplices barged into the vehicle and kidnapped him. Later, they telephoned the owner of the taxi agency, and demanded a ransom of Rs. 1 lac from him to release Harish.

Though the police arrested the five kidnappers and rescued Harish, they are yet to trace the woman member of the gang. Investigation revealed that the gang was involved in four more criminal cases.

While most drivers hesitate to pick up a hitchhiker late at night, they are ready to help a woman, thinking that she is in distress, and thus become easy victims.

Similarly, the South division police recently arrested six people, including three women, who lured software engineers into a trap through the Internet and robbed them of mobile phones and gold ornaments.

According to the police, using female names, Robin Subbaiah, a college dropout, and his accomplice, Masood, befriended people on the Internet chat room.

Claiming themselves to be women, they gave their telephone numbers to the persons with whom they chatted. When their new friends telephoned, Robin and Masood made their women accomplices, who spoke fluent English, to speak to them.

The women invited the new friends to dinner at a particular place. After the dinner, the new friends who had "ulterior motives" took the women to some isolated places.

The other members of the gang followed them in a van, threatened them and robbed them of valuables. The police say the three arrested women, Yogita (22), Ayesha (24) and Naheeda (28), are from middle-class families.

In yet another incident, the Chandra Layout police arrested five women on charges of theft and recovered from them gold jewellery and silver articles, together worth Rs. 50,000. According to the police these women knocked on the doors of houses seeking drinking water. When the inmates went inside to bring water, the women entered the rooms and quickly stole valuables lying around. The women were from Salem in Tamil Nadu.