Mumbai senior citizen gets back part of jewellery stolen by domestic help
Singh has been living alone for the past five decades. And after her retirement from Kamgar Hospital in 2006, she has relied on domestic helps to take care of her
A knock at the door turned a 70-year-old retired nurse’s despair into hope when the Dadar police handed over part of her stolen jewellery to her on Monday night.
The police recovered 770 grams of the total 1.1kg of the stolen jewellery — a significant portion of her life savings — from Swaran Fouja Singh’s 45-year-old domestic help, identified as Asha Sunil Keer. Singh, who lives at Adarsh Nagar building in Worli, is mostly bed-ridden owing to a fracture in her leg.
Singh has been living alone for the past five decades. And after her retirement from Kamgar Hospital in 2006, she has relied on domestic helps to take care of her. When her domestic help for five years went on a maternity leave early in 2017, Singh was forced to hire Keer.
Keer stopped coming to work from December 31 and Singh did not find anything suspicious till she found her jewellery missing.
On January 5, Swaran dialled 100 and informed the control room that somebody had stolen 1,100 grams of gold, silver, platinum and diamond jewellery from her cupboard. The Dadar police initially took Singh’s statement with a pinch of salt as she did not have any jewellery bills. The investigation revealed that she had indeed lost her ornaments.
A team led by sub-inspector Tanaji Kadam was formed to crack the case. “Keer and her two daughters used to visit Singh many times daily. We questioned her, but she initially did not confess to the crime,” said Kadam.
Keer buckled under sustained questioning and admitted to have stolen the jewellery. She was arrested. “She had kept the booty with five jewellers she had borrowed money from. She claimed that she had taken money for her daughters’ education,” said Diwakar Shelke, senior inspector of Dadar police station.
The police also learnt that Keer had borrowed money from other people to buy two cars for a business in 2008. “The business losses and debt forced her to steal,” said Kadam.
The sub-inspector said Keer saw Singh’s ornaments when the latter unwittingly left the cupboard door open during Ganeshotsav in August-September. “First, Keer stole a big piece of jewellery which went undetected. This emboldened her and she had continued stealing till December when she thought that she had enough,” said Kadam.
“I was 24 when I started working. Since then, I had kept buying gold ornaments as savings till my retirement. I thank God that Keer only stole my ornaments, and did not cause any physical harm to me,” said Singh.
She hoped that the Dadar police will soon recover the remainder jewellery.