Date:16/04/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/04/16/stories/2005041616290300.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Samaritans may not be good always

The police have advised women walking on the road not to hand over ornaments to strangers who approach them with tales, writes K.V. Subramanya

CHEATS IN the guise of "good Samaritan policemen" who had relieved several women of gold ornaments in the city are back on the prowl after a brief lull.

Posing as policemen, three youths relieved a woman of her gold ornaments worth Rs. 35,000 in Byatarayanapura police station limits on April 6. When Susheela Bai (45), a resident of Ayanna Shetty Layout on Mysore Road, was walking towards a tailor's shop near her house, three youths in plain clothes accosted her and introduced themselves as policemen.

They told her that a woman had been murdered and robbed of her gold ornaments on the neighbouring road and made her remove her two gold chains. They wrapped them in a newspaper and gave the packet to her.

A few minutes later, when Susheela Bai opened the packet, she found a shoe polish box filled with pebbles. Such incidents have been reported from R.T. Nagar, Basavanagudi, Jayanagar, Yeshwantpur, HAL, Vijayanagar and Koramangala police station limits. In all the incidents, except in the Koramangala case where two college students were relieved of their gold chains, the victims were elderly women.

After a series of such incidents last year, the police arrested three Iranian youths settled in Guntakal in Andhra Pradesh. They had allegedly committed most of these crimes. Police officials from Gujarat, Goa and Andhra Pradesh came here and interrogated them as such cases were reported in their States also. The police have some advice for the public to prevent such crimes. They say policemen would never ask people walking on the roads to remove their gold ornaments. "Even if you remove the valuables, do not give them to strangers. You yourself keep them in your bags or pockets," a senior official suggests.

Women are also falling prey to "gold polishers" who have made away with ornaments worth lakhs of rupees in recent times. Referring to such incidents, the police suggest that people should not entertain any strangers at their homes. They should take the gold ornaments to jewellery shops and get them polished, they advise.

The police say that most of the "gold polishers" are from North India and they have been regularly arresting them. The police say that no such incident has been reported in the last two months. Some time ago, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court sentenced two "gold polishers," Jayakumar (22) of Gujarat and Pappu Singh (25) of Bihar, to one year imprisonment and fined them Rs.1,000 each for cheating a woman of her gold ornaments.