Photograph used for representative purpose only.
Long, deserted stretches in Gurgaon have become the favourite hunting ground for bike-borne chain snatchers. In what is emerging as an alarming trend, chain snatchers pose as policemen, engage them in conversation, hypnotise them and then flee with their jewellery.
With a number of similar cases happening in the city, residents of DLF Phase II, sectors 55, 56 and 57, and Sushant Lok II and III have started approaching higher-level police officials.
In a recent incident reported from DLF Phase II, two men wearing casuals stopped Kusum and Kulvir Chaudhary, telling them they were policemen. The men then went on to educate them on why wearing gold jewellery while out on the streets was unsafe, even flashing their identity cards. The couple, somehow, became suspicious. As passers-by began to gather, the two men sped away on their bikes.
Other cases have also been reported from the city, in which elderly women have been targeted by men posing as policemen. The modus operandi has been somewhat similar. Motorcycle-borne men approach elderly women and ask them to hide their gold jewellery under their clothes. When they see an opportunity, they snatch the jewellery and flee.
Recently, a 62-year-old retired college professor was robbed of her gold bangles in Sector 43. Vijay Rani Pasrija was going to a temple around 7 am, when a youth told her that two cops standing on the other side of the road were calling her. "I don't know quite how it happened, but when I reached home, I realised my gold bangles were missing," she said. Pasrija was apparently hypnotised by the robbers.
Another incident was reported from near the Sector 17 market. Snehlata Gupta was stopped on her way to a temple by two men who showed her police ID cards and told her to keep the jewellery she was wearing in her handkerchief, as there were snatchers in the area. When she reached home, she found that the handkerchief in which she had wrapped her four gold bangles, two gold rings and a gold chain, was missing. This, too, seems to be a case of hypnotism.
FIRs have been registered at various police stations with similar complaints, but the police are clueless so far. "We have registered FIRs and formed special teams to look into such incidents," said ACP Hawa Singh, the CPRO of Gurgaon Police.
