Two residents of a ladies hostel, who were apparently charmed by the beauty of a new roommate and accepted her offer of a facial scrub, ended up being robbed of six sovereigns of gold jewellery by the woman when they dozed off during the treatment at Santhome High Road on Sunday afternoon.
The woman, who gave her name as Sharaya arrived at JL Working Women’s Hostel at 10.30 am, clad in white shirt and grey trousers with a bag. She claimed to be a native of Tenali in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh and said she had been married for two years and had got a job with an IT firm in Adyar. She provided a fictitious address and a mobile phone number, that was later answered by a Telugu-speaking man. After paying an advance of Rs 500, she was taken to her room where she met Sulochana, who was working in an IT firm, and Kanimozhi, a student of Queen Mary’s College. The duo were reportedly impressed by Sharaya’s demeanour and asked her for beauty tips.
Sharaya told that she could do a facial make-over for them, to which the duo readily agreed. She first made them remove their jewellery, claiming that it would lose its sheen if exposed to the cosmetics. After applying face packs on them, Sharaya placed wet cotton swabs on their eyes, which made them doze off. Sharaya said she would wait till the packs remained on their faces. However, when they awoke around half an hour later at 3.30 pm, they found Sharaya missing with her luggage and their ornaments.
While hostel owner Rajagopalan initially argued with the two inmates after learning of the incident, he later agreed to compensate them and filed a police complaint on Monday. Rajagopalan told Express that the woman did not furnish any proof of identity and had left nothing behind.
There were no CCTVs at the hostel which was functioning for two years. This is likely to hinder investigations as there is no image of the suspect to help tracing her. Moreover, the hostel did not have a security guard with the owner’s mother staying with the inmates at night.
HM Duped
Meanwhile, in a similar incident at Elephant Gate on Monday, the headmistress of an aided school was duped of six sovereigns by a man who approached her with a camcorder on pretext of shooting an advertisement for a soap at the school. He asked her to remove her ornaments and wash her face before the shoot. After the shoot ended, the woman found her jewels missing.