BENGALURU: An elderly woman was conned by an man who offered her old age pension and made away with her gold jewels. She filed a complaint with the Commercial Street police on Tuesday.
She told police that he took her to a nearby bank by claiming that she had to provide documents to the bank and forced her to remove her gold ornaments before escaping.
Police said Lakshmi Devi (68), a resident of Sangam Road near Commercial Street, alleged that she was walking back home when an unidentified man approached her and asked her if she had applied for old age pension. She told him she had applied for it but had not got it. He promised that he would help her get the pension and took her to Canara Bank on Kamaraj Road. Before she entered the bank, he forced her to remove her gold chain by saying the bank officials would consider her to be rich seeing her jewellery and reject her application.
She then removed her chain and kept it in a wallet. Then he made her wait outside the bank and went away claiming he would go get a photo copy of her Aadhaar card. Before going he convinced her to give him the wallet with the chain.
As he did not turn up, the woman raised an alarm. Commercial Street police were alerted about the incident. There was no CCTV camera outside the bank and thus police are looking out for CCTV footage from around the area to identify the suspect.
“Before approaching Lakshmi, he had also forced another woman to come along with him,” said police.
Lakshmi told Express, “I had not seen that man before. He told me that he knew officers in the bank and would help me get pension. He took me in an autorickshaw while I was walking along with another woman in the area. I lost my gold chain worth `60,000. He did not tell me his name when he took me to the bank.”