Mumbai: Bike-borne thieves snatch elderly couple's international trip

Representational picture

The Mishras were all set to embark on a 25-day tour of South America on Monday evening, but a couple of bike-borne thieves snatched their plans. Ramakant Mishra, 71, and Shobha Mishra, 68, were forced to cancel their trip after the snatchers took away Shobha's bag, which contained their passports, visas, and Rs 5,000 in cash.

Ramakant and Shobha had arrived in Mumbai from Nagpur on Monday morning, and were staying at a friend's home in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). "We'd come to Mumbai to catch an 10.20 pm flight to South America, where we were going to visit Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina. After waiting at BKC for 30 minutes to get a taxi, we hailed an autorickshaw to go to the international airport," Ramakant told mid-day.

"Around 7.30 pm, just before we took the turn for Terminal 2 from the Western Express Highway, two helmet-wearing youths on a motorcycle came close to our rickshaw, lifted my wife's handbag from her lap, and sped away on the busy highway. They disappeared in no time," recalled Mishra. The bag contained their passports, visas, bluetooth devices and Rs 5,000 in cash.

The autorickshaw driver took the elderly couple to a traffic policeman standing nearby. The cop suggested the driver to take the couple to Andheri police station to register a case. At the station, Ramakant said, "We narrated the incident to a woman police officer at Andheri police station. The officer visited the crime spot with us and asked us to visit the Vile Parle police station, where we have registered the case."

Senior inspector of Vile Parle police station, Laxman Chavan, confirmed the incident and said 'investigations are underway'. An officer privy to the investigation said there is no CCTV footage of the incident. However, the officer said even if they had any footage, "It would not have yielded any fruit as the incident occurred after sunset," on the highway with lots of flashing headlights.

Rs 5k
Cash the couple lost

Keep your bags close
A deputy commissioner of police told mid-day that bag snatching cases are on the rise in Mumbai. "The worst-affected areas are highways, roads leading to airport, wedding halls and market complexes. Women travelling in autorickshaws need to be on alert," said the DCP.

Also Read: Bike-borne assailants hack gateman's hands for refusing to open level crossing gate

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