Police have booked an unknown person after a 57-year-old woman from Andheri alleged that her gold and diamond ornaments worth around ₹12 lakh were stolen from her locker held with the Mahalaxmi branch of Bank of India (BoI).
Mita Sampat, who recently filed a complaint at Gamdevi police station, said she had submitted an application about the theft a year ago, but no action was taken, and a police officer later told her that the application was misplaced.
She claimed that she again approached the police after learning about similar incidents in which valuables belonging to two bank customers were reported stolen from lockers in the bank’s Walkeshwar branch. “I attached to my complaint a copy of the application I had submitted last year and this time, the police registered an FIR.”
A case under section 380 (theft in dwelling, house, etc.) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered on August 15.
As per her complaint, Sampat stayed at Peddar Road up to 2007 – till the time her husband was alive and held a joint account and a locker in their names in the Mahalaxmi branch of BoI. She said she had kept all her gold and diamond ornaments – which she had received as gifts from her parents and from her husband’s side at the time of her wedding – in the locker.
After the death of her husband, she shifted to the MIDC area in Andheri East and since then the locker had been in her name, Sampat said, adding she had been checking the locker at least once a year. However, after her visit to the branch on January 14, 2020, she could not do so for the next two years because of the pandemic, the complaint said.
{{/usCountry}}After the death of her husband, she shifted to the MIDC area in Andheri East and since then the locker had been in her name, Sampat said, adding she had been checking the locker at least once a year. However, after her visit to the branch on January 14, 2020, she could not do so for the next two years because of the pandemic, the complaint said.
{{/usCountry}}When she visited the branch on June 16, 2022, a female staff member, who was the custodian of the locker, came with bank’s set of keys. As soon as the complainant opened the locker and started checking the ornaments kept in a box, a peon came in and left hurriedly, Sampat said. Immediately thereafter, the lights in the locker room, which was in a basement, went off and she had to close the locker.
The complainant said when she enquired with the custodian, the female officer informed her that the electricity supply could not be restored for the day and asked her to come the next day to check her belongings.
On August 12, 2022, Sampat said, she received a WhatsApp message from the bank, asking her to remove the contents from her locker as the bank was about to shift to a new location. Accordingly, she visited the bank and on checking the locker she found that her gold and diamond ornaments were missing, Sampat alleged.
A police officer from Gamdevi police station said the complainant discussed the issue with her son, and both went to the bank on August 18, 2022, and complained to the chief manager, B Shringesh.
“However, Shringesh advised her to take up the issue with assistant branch manager M V V Bangraju who was absent on that day. The next day, the duo again went to the bank and submitted a written complaint to Bangraju,” the police officer said.
At that time, they had also visited the police station and lodged a complaint, but no action was taken, and subsequently when she enquired, a female police officer told the woman that she had misplaced her application, the police officer added.
Similar complaints against bank
The Malabar Hill police on August 3 registered two cases under section 380 of IPC after gold ornaments of two customers were found stolen from lockers held with the bank’s Walkeshwar branch. The police arrested bank employee Dilipkumar Krishnakumar Chavan and allegedly recovered around 90% of the stolen booty from him. Chavan, who was posted at the Walkeshwar branch in 2022, is currently in judicial custody.
Police officials said the theft occurred between March and April this year, but one of the customers, Mrinalini Rajiv Jaisinghani, 28, came to know about it in July while the other, Deepak Mahendrakumar Nathwani, 66, learnt about it on August 1.
On July 17, Jaisinghani realised that valuables worth around ₹31.52 lakh, including gold and diamond ornaments weighing 323 grams, and ₹83,000 in cash and foreign currency notes worth ₹3.24 lakh were missing from her family’s two lockers. She approached the police, and a case was registered against unidentified persons.
The second case was registered following a complaint lodged by Nathwani, a resident of Napean Sea Road. Nathwani said he had kept gold and diamond jewellery weighing 332 grams in his locker but found them missing when he checked it on August 1.
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