Scooter riders snatch chains outside wedding halls

In the space of an hour on Monday morning, two men riding a scooter robbed women in Basavanagudi and Banashankari.

About 6.20 am, Padmini Prakash, 51, a homemaker from BEML Layout, RR Nagar, lost two gold chains weighing over 50 grams near Pai Vista Conventional Hall, Basavanagudi. She told police that she was at the hall to attend her niece’s marriage.

Padmini was taking her bags from the car near the hall when the scooter-borne men approached her on the pretext of asking her something. The man on the pillion snatched her old chains and both sped away on the two-wheeler.

Around 7.30 am, the same gang is suspected to have snatched the gold chain of another woman near Dharmagiri Kalyana Mantapa in Banashankari 2nd Stage. Lavanya S, 23, from Sarathinagar on Gottigere Main Road in JP Nagar, filed a complaint with Banashankari police on the incident.

Lavanya said in the complaint that she was at the wedding hall to attend a relative’s wedding. When she came out of the hall to buy some biscuits for her child, the scooter-borne men sidled up to her and the man on the pillion brandished a knife and snatched her gold chain weighing 46 grams. The men sped away before she could raise an alarm.

A senior officer suspected that both the chain-snatchings were committed by the same men. They are aged nearly 26 to 30 years, according to the victim’s statement. “We’ve got some leads,” the officer said.