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Surround, distract, snatch & flee: Govt employee’s gold chain snatched at Zirakpur bus stand
The latest such incident took place on September 7 though the victim, Pooja, a 32-year-old legal assistant working with the Haryana education department and a resident of Sector 10, Panchkula, approached the police only recently
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Boarding a bus from Zirakpur’s Singhpura bus stand? Don’t let your guard down. For the last few months, a familiar theme seems to be playing out. A group of women zero in on an unsuspecting target, surround them while boarding a bus, create a distraction and then flee with the victim’s ornaments.
The latest such incident took place on September 7 though the victim, Pooja, a 32-year-old legal assistant working with the Haryana education department and a resident of Sector 10, Panchkula, approached the police only recently.
She told the police that she had arrived at Singhpura on a bus from Gurugram and waited for 10 to 15 minutes for a connecting bus to Panchkula. As she began boarding, four to five unidentified women allegedly surrounded her.
Two women moved ahead of her, while another one pretended to fall in front of her, creating confusion among passengers. Pooja managed to board the bus but soon realised that her gold mangalsutra was missing.
She immediately got off the bus and tried to chase the women. The suspects, however, boarded two waiting vehicles – a white Hyundai Venue and a white Maruti Suzuki Swift – and fled.
A case under Sections 304 (snatching) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been registered against the unidentified women.
Head constable Gurfateh Singh, who is investigating the case, said police are examining closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage to identify the suspects and trace the vehicles.
The case bears similarities to another snatching complaint from the same bus stand. In July, 60-year-old Suman Arora of Vishnu Colony, Kurukshetra, told police that two gold bangles weighing around six tolas were stolen while she was boarding an HRTC bus to Yamunanagar at Singhpura Chowk on July 8.
Arora had come to Mohali with her husband to visit her brother-in-law, who was undergoing treatment for stage-IV cancer at a private hospital. She told police that an unidentified woman moved ahead of her while a man stood close behind, restricting her movement. The duo allegedly told her not to board that particular bus.
After boarding, Arora realised that her two gold bangles were missing. She got the bus stopped and searched for the suspects, but they had fled. A case was registered but the accused remain untraced.
