Rly officer's attention diverted; relieved of Rs 53,000

An unidentified miscreant diverted the attention of a 59-year-old man and robbed him of Rs. 53,000 in Yediyur on Thursday afternoon.

V Ramachandra, a resident of Jaraganahalli, had just stepped out a bank and was waiting to board a bus towards city railway station where he worked as a senior technician and supervisor of AC coaches, the police said.

Ramachandra had withdrawn money from the bank and had kept it in his bag which also contained his cheque book, passbook, mobile phone and other documents.

"I had withdrawn the money for paying my house rent and my daughter's tuition fee," Ramachandra told DH.

After coming out of the bank, Ramachandra was waiting at a bus stand in Yediyur, 7th Block Jayanagar. A stranger approached him and diverted his attention by saying his shirt had become dirty. Ramachandra put his bag down to clean the stain on his shirt. It was only after cleaning the shirt did he realise that the stranger had disappeared with his bag.

After he failed to trace the thief, he went back to the bank and requested them to block his account. Meanwhile, an auto-driver helped him lodge a complaint at the jurisdictional Banashankari police station.

On Friday morning, Ramachandra received a call from Jayanagar police who asked him to see identify a bag. An advocate found the abandoned bag in front of his house and had handed it over to police, but the bag only had Ramachandra's documents. The money and mobile phone were missing. The CCTV footage available shows only the victim coming out of the bank and then he moves away from the frame towards the bus stop, the police said. Investigations are on.