'High-priority zone in national capital': MP R Sudha's gold chain snatched in Delhi while out on morning walk

'If a woman cannot walk safely in this high-priority zone in the national capital of India, where else can we feel safe and do our routine without fearing for our limbs, lives and valuables,' Sudha said.

New Delhi: Congress MP R Sudha became the latest victim of chain snatching in the national capital on Monday while she was on a morning walk in the high security diplomatic enclave in Chanakyapuri.

Sudha wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah about the incident that took place around 6:15 AM in a locality that houses several embassies and official residences of state governments. Police said they have registered a case and deployed multiple teams to trace the snatcher, examine CCTV footage and speak to eye-witnesses.

Senior Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accompanied Sudha, who represents Mayiladuthurai, to meet Lok Speaker Om Birla, who spoke with Delhi Police Commissioner SBK Singh and asked him to take steps to catch the culprit.

Opposition MPs tried to raise the issue in Lok Sabha but were not allowed. The MPs claimed Sudha should have been allowed to raise the issue in the House in the morning session. In the afternoon session, Jagadambika Pal, who was in the Chair, mentioned the incident and said the Speaker has spoken to police officials and asked them to take necessary action.

In her letter to Shah, she and Rajya Sabha MP Rajathi (Salma) stepped out of Tamil Nadu House, where they are staying as official residences have not been allocated, for morning walk and around 6:15-6:20 AM, when they were near Poland Embassy, a scooter-borne man wearing a helmet approached them and snatched her gold chain. She also minorly injured her neck in the incident.

She said in the letter that she spotted a Delhi Police mobile van and complained to them, who asked her to approach Chanakyapuri police station.

"If a woman cannot walk safely in this high-priority zone in the national capital of India, where else can we feel safe and do our routine without fearing for our limbs, lives and valuables," she said.

Sudha told reporters that the mobile police van was not much of help as they just directed us to contact the local police station.

"They should have acted with alacrity. They did not. Then I called our Whip Manickam Tagore who called the police following which we filed a complaint. This is happening in Delhi where you have a woman Chief Minister and a double-engine government," she said.