BENGALURU: A 36-year-old housekeeping staff member of a private hospital on Hennur-Bagalur Main Road was arrested by the Hennur police for allegedly stealing around 85 grams of gold ornaments worth Rs 9.60 lakh from a patient admitted for surgery.
The accused, Vanjakshi, a resident of Hennur, committed the theft a day after joining work.
The police said that the accused joined work on May 1, same day as the patient, Swapna, got admitted at the hospital. When Swapna was shifted to the operation theatre, the nursing staff instructed Vanjakshi to keep the patient’s gold ornaments in a cupboard.
When Swapna’s husband, Srinivas, opened the cupboard after the surgery, he found that the 65-gram gold mangalsutra, 9-gram gold earrings, and 10-gram silver anklets were missing.
He alerted the hospital staff and later filed a complaint with the police that the staff did not respond properly. After questioning the hospital staff and analysing the CCTV footage, found that the accused entered the room to clean the floor, stole the gold ornaments, and hid them in her pockets before absconding. She had pledged the gold ornaments in Tumakuru. Vanjakshi was later traced and she confessed to the crime