01 November,2018 09:30 PM IST | Mumbai | Anurag Kamble
Constable Rajesh Patole who recognised and nabbed the woman
A housewife emboldened by her first successful attempt at stealing was nabbed thanks to an alert constable, who stopped her before she could steal again. The woman had stolen a gold jhumka from a jeweller recently. The jeweller, Mukesh Soni, 31, has a store at Narayan Nagar, Ghatkopar West. On October 16, when he was unwell and hadn't been to the shop, he got a call in the evening from his brother Ganesh, saying a gold jhumka weighing 7 gm and worth Rs 21,000 was missing from the display. Mukesh asked him to check CCTV footage.
Ganesh found that a woman who had visited around 2.30 pm with a 10-or 12-year-old kid, had asked for a jhumka to try it on, and hadn't returned it when another customer arrived. The Ghatkopar police registered a case of theft under IPC Section 380 against the unknown woman. "We circulated the CCTV footage to all officers and constables, asking them to look out for this woman," said an officer from Ghatkopar police station.
Constable spots her
On October 27, when Constable Rajesh Patole was patrolling around 3 pm in Ghatkopar, he saw a woman step out of a jewellery shop with a boy. "I immediately recognised her. I stepped forward and asked her to go back inside the shop and also asked where she stayed. She was baffled," Patole said. "I then called a woman constable to the shop. She took her to the police station where the woman confessed to her crime," he added.
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Stopped before stealing
The woman was identified as Surekha Awhad, 40. She is a resident of Panvel and stays with her husband who is a labourer, and 12-year-old son. Police said the jhumka had been her first attempt at stealing and she was about to do so again. She took her son along to throw off any suspicion. They said she has returned the golden jhumka that she had stolen. She was produced in court on Sunday and remanded in police custody for two days after which she secured bail, they said.
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