KOCHI: Anju Chopra, 37, a resident of Connaught Place in New Delhi, recently arrived at a jewellery store on MG Road in the guise of purchasing gold. She flicked two bangles weighing about three sovereigns, and, within seconds, vanished from the spot.
The baffled jewellery manager approached the police, who, in turn, turned to the force’s most reliable ally these days - the CCTV. First, officers examined the CCTV visuals from the shop and identified the suspect. Then, they tracked CCTV units in the vicinity, and spotted the woman boarding an autorickshaw.
Officers soon traced the autorickshaw, after identifying its registration number. The driver told police that he had dropped the woman at a lodge near Ernakulam South Railway Station.
“It was a mad rush to the lodge, as we guessed she was all set to flee,” says an officer, who was part of the investigation. “As we arrived at the lodge, the woman had left for the railway station. However, we managed to reach the station in the nick of time, and apprehended her.”
Officers recovered 14 gold bangles, including the two lifted from the MG Road jewellery, from her bag. Some bangle designs hinted that they were made outside Kerala, says the officer. On interrogation, Anju confessed that she had been to Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh before arriving in Kerala.
“Her arrest helped us get details of an inter-state racket,” says the officer quoted above. Police can take pride in the fact that the whole track-and-trace bust happened in a couple of hours. “The CCTV footage played a crucial role in the arrest,” says Kochi Central Police SHO S Vijay Shankar. “The accused was part of a similar jewellery theft that recently occurred in Chennai. The investigation is under way and she is currently in judicial custody.”