Kolkata businessman-scientist loses cash worth ₹5.28 lakh from luxe Bandra hotel room

MUMBAI: A luxury stay at a five-star hotel in Bandra West turned into an expensive mystery for a Kolkata-based businessman-scientist after $6,000 (around ₹5

MUMBAI: A luxury stay at a five-star hotel in Bandra West turned into an expensive mystery for a Kolkata-based businessman-scientist after $6,000 (around ₹5.28 lakh) allegedly went missing from his hotel room within hours of checking in on Thursday. With friends, hotel staff and room service moving in and out through the evening, Bandra police are now scanning CCTV footage to trace the missing cash.

The complainant, Rahul Kanti Jagdish Chandra Roy, 65, told police that he had arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday to meet his friend Anshuman Gupta and checked into the luxury hotel at Lands End, Bandra West, around 3.30 pm. The duo was allotted Room No 2248 on the 22nd floor, where they freshened up after placing their luggage inside.

According to the FIR, singer Anjan Guha, accompanied by Trisha Chatterjee, a member of his team, and another woman, later joined them in the room. While the group was chatting in the living area, Roy said he asked Gupta to retrieve his medicine from a password-protected travel bag, giving him the password. Gupta opened the bag and handed him the medicine, but the bag was left partially open.

Roy said that during this time, two hotel staff members entered the room, one to activate the Wi-Fi and another to serve drinking water, before leaving.

Around 4.30 pm, the group headed to the hotel’s ‘Chambers and Lawns’ on the 25th floor. Shortly afterwards, Guha realised he had left his umbrella in the room and returned with Gupta to collect it. Guha and his colleagues then left the hotel, while Gupta rejoined Roy upstairs.

At around 5.30 pm, Roy and Gupta left to visit Dr Pradeep in Bandra and returned to the hotel around 6.30 pm. They later had dinner at the hotel’s Masala Bay restaurant.

According to the complaint, the two returned to their room around 9.30 pm, accompanied by a hotel service attendant who entered the bedroom, collected used coffee glasses and left immediately.

It was only later, when Roy went to freshen up, that he noticed his travel bag and wallet were open. “Suspicious, I checked the bag and discovered that the 60 banknotes of $100 each, totaling $6,000 ( ₹5.28 lakh), were missing,” Roy told police. He said Gupta informed him that no one apart from the hotel attendant had entered the room after they returned that night.

Upon searching the room and their belongings without success, Roy concluded that the money had been stolen from his travel bag. Based on his complaint, the Bandra police have registered a case against an unknown person for theft and are examining CCTV footage to trace the accused.

HT reached out to the hostel administration for a comment, but did not receive any till the time of going to print.