Woman held for robbing neighbour

Caught on CCTV camera in flat

Navi Mumbai: The APMC police have arrested a woman for stealing gold ornaments from her neighbour’s house using duplicate keys. The woman was captured on the closed circuit television (CCTV) camera in the house.

The woman, Meena Anand Gupta, lives with her husband, who has intellectual disabilities, and their son.

Earlier theft

According to the police, the complainant, Rajan Gupta, had noticed around two months ago that cash had gone missing from his cupboard when no one was at home. Mr. Gupta, a vegetable trader in the APMC market, goes to unload vegetables at night and comes home only in the morning.

“Around two months ago, his wife had gone to her sister’s house in Ghansoli and he was at work, when someone stole cash from the house. After realising that someone had entered the flat without breaking the lock, he installed a CCTV camera,” an officer from the APMC police station said.

In September, his wife had gone to her parents’ house. “On September 27, when the complainant came back from work, he saw that the wire of the camera had been cut and valuables worth ₹20,000 were missing. He checked the camera recording, which was intact on the hard disk, and found that his neighbour had stolen the valuables. It also showed Ms. Gupta cutting the camera wire with a kitchen knife,” the officer said.

Confrontation

Mr. Gupta confronted his neighbour, and she agreed to return the stolen goods. But when she kept delaying doing so, he approached the APMC police on Tuesday and registered a complaint.

The police suspect that the accused had a duplicate key made to the complainant’s flat. “We have arrested the woman and been granted two days’ custody. We will try to recover the stolen goods. The woman worked as domestic help, and was probably in need of money,” senior police inspector Rajendra Galande said.