Over the last one month, the staff at Victoria Hospital’s nephro-urology department were receiving repeated complaints of footwear, left outside the unit, mysteriously disappearing.
Even doctors and hospital staff were not spared by the shoe thief. Finally, the thief was caught red-handed on Thursday while he was in the act of leaving the premises with a pair of slippers he had stolen from a patient.
According to the police, security personnel were keeping watch at the entrance of the ICU in the hope of catching the thief. On Thursday, they noticed a man entering barefoot, but leaving wearing slippers. When confronted, the man confessed to the security personnel that he had stolen several pairs of footwear and would sell it to vendors on the pavement opposite Victoria Hospital.
The accused was later handed over to the police. “We let him go with a warning as no complaint was filed,” a senior police officer said.