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Chandigarh: Woman snatcher strikes again, takes away walker’s chain
Attacked woman from behind while she was taking a walk with her two daughters in Sector 23 on Tuesday night; fled with male accomplice waiting on a motorcycle nearby
A female snatcher struck again, the third time in the past four months, plucking a woman’s gold chain in Sector 23 on Tuesday night.
The victim, Pardeep Kaur, was out for a walk with her two daughters around 8.40pm when a woman walked up to her and snatched her gold chain. Before Kaur could react, the snatcher ran towards her male accomplice waiting on a motorcycle in the nearby market and the duo sped away.
“The woman was around 40 years old, was wearing jeans and had her hair tied with a claw clip. I was talking on the mobile phone when she attacked me from behind,” Kaur told the police.
Acting on her complaint, a case under Section 379-A (snatching) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at the Sector 17 police station. According to police the area was poorly lit and not much could be made out from the CCTV footage.
Not a first
On May 30, a woman riding pillion on a motorcycle had snatched the mobile phone of a Sector 41 resident. More recently, on August 4, a man and a woman on a motorcycle had snatched a 76-year-old woman’s gold chain in Sector 15.
So far the police have failed to make any headway into these cases. They have neither been able to track down the accused nor the motorcycles used by them.
“Such gangs mostly cover the registration plates with mud or tape to avoid being traced,” said a senior police official.
“Women are active in various crimes, but now Chandigarh is witnessing their involvement in snatchings as well. These crimes appear to be the handiwork of same people working together as a gang,” said Kuldeep Singh Chahal, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Chandigarh.
He said, “The lure of easy money was pulling youngsters into the vortex of crime, irrespective of gender.”
