Woman flees with trader's valuables from star hotel room

A builder was reportedly duped by a woman who made away with his valuables from a room in Leela Palace Hotel on Old Airport Road.

According to the police, Vasanth Rajan, a builder from Tamil Nadu, went to the hotel with a woman on April 23. As they went into his room, Rajan asked her to wait while he went in to have a shower. He removed his gold chain and a diamond chain worth Rs 6 lakh and kept it on the table with an iPad and wallet. After a few minutes, Rajan came out of the room and told the woman he would attend a small party and get some liquor for her.

Minutes after he left, he got a call from the woman who claimed that her mother had fallen sick and she had to leave immediately. Rajan, who asked her to leave, came back after a few hours and found the valuables missing. He informed his friend Raj, who was staying in another room in the same hotel.

They told their friend Rithvik Shetty, a local politician in Chamarajanagar district, about the incident. On April 25, they lodged a complaint at the Jeevan Bima Nagar police station. Rajan and Raj had come from Tamil Nadu to discuss the purchase of land in Madikeri with Rithvik Shetty, police said.

“We have vital clues about the woman and will reveal her identity only after she is nabbed. It is suspected that she was flown in from Hyderabad and flew back with the valuables. A team has been sent to Hyderabad to look for her. Shetty also claimed that Rajan was related to a politician in Tamil Nadu. But later, it was found that Shetty made it up just to pressure the police to act quickly,” said a senior police officer.

“Also, Rajan claimed that the woman was a marketing executive and he had called her over some business. But we suspect she was a sex worker and efforts are being made to trace her. The mobile phones of Rajan and his friend have been switched off since Thursday and we are trying to trace them. CCTV footage from the hotel clearly shows Rajan accompanying the woman into his room,” added the officer. A case has been registered at the Jeevan Bima Nagar police station.