Sleight of hand in garb of ‘puja’ to steal gold chain

In a novel method of attention diversion, two women and a man robbed the gold mangalsutra of a woman by performing a kind of black magic on her.

They performed the “puja” on the victim with lemon, kumkum and turmeric powder.

The woman, Roopa, 42, who runs a DTP centre in Kunigal taluk of Tumakuru, stated in a police complaint that she came to Bengaluru with her sister to shop for the wedding of the latter’s daughter on February 14.

After shopping in other sections of the market, they were lugging huge bags towards the flower market when two women looking like transgenders and a man walked towards Roopa in the crowd. One of the women kept a lemon on her head, muttering something. A scared Roopa tried to step back.

Another woman tried a similar ritual on her sister, who moved away warning her not to perform such rituals on her and she did not believe in them.

“The woman told my sister that she would be blessed if they keep the lemon on her head. I wasn’t sure what they were up to or when exactly they stole my mangalsutra, but when I tried adjusting my clothes, I found that the gold chain had been robbed,” Roopa stated.

Roopa immediately alerted her sister. They went in search of the trio but could not find them. Roopa rushed to the City Market police station, a stone’s throw away from the scene of the incident, and informed the police. The cops had also searched and failed to locate the trio.

“We’ve taken up a case of cheating as they diverted the attention and stole the chain,” said an investigating officer, adding that the modus operandi of using lemon and vermilion is new, though several attention diversion cases have been reported earlier.

Police said they were trying to trace the trio.

Meanwhile, police escorted the panicked Roopa and her sister until they boarded the metro train to Jalahalli. The duo then returned home to Kunigal. Roopa took part in the wedding of her sister’s daughter on Sunday.