Pickpockets are back at the Banashankari Temple, South Bengaluru. The wife of a police sub-inspector was the latest to fall for their tricks.
Pickpockets are making hay on Fridays and at weekends when the temple sees a high footfall.
Geetha, whose husband D Ramesh is in the police, found the zip of her handbag open and a 12-gram gold chain missing during a visit to the temple on January 18. She looked for the purse on the temple premises and finally found it near the washroom. But it was empty, save for her Aadhaar card. Aware of the past thefts at the temple, Geetha had removed the chain and kept it in the handbag but the pickpocket had apparently noticed what she was doing, a police officer said. Police are reviewing the CCTV footage to identify the pickpocket. On November 20, 2018, a team of five female constables from the Kumaraswamy Layout police station had caught a middle-aged woman following a covert operation that spanned almost a month. The suspect, M Uma alias Yellamma, had allegedly stolen eight gold chains and other valuables .