Mumbai: Woman takes senior citizen to gym, steals her flat keys and Rs 8 lakh gold

MUMBAI: A Malad housewife has been arrested for stealing gold ornaments worth Rs 8 lakh from the flat of a neighbour, a female senior citizen, on June 20 after encouraging her to visit the society gymnasium and sneaking away with her flat keys as she exercised.
The crime branch cracked the case on Tuesday and arrested Ruchita Sachin Tanna (38) and jeweller Dipak Sarkariya (43), accused of buying the stolen gold from Tanna.
The police said that despite several awareness efforts, jewellers continued to buy ornaments illegally.
The police said the senior citizen, a retired banker, was scared and traumatised and decided not to report the incident.
“After we learnt that the senior couple were scared to even lodge a complaint, we took them into confidence and registered an FIR of housebreaking,” inspector Chimaji Adhav said.
The complainant said to the police that on June 20 when her husband had gone out, she went to the society gymnasium along with Tanna, who had recently befriended her during morning walks in the society. The senior couple’s children work in US.
The police said that on June 20, the victim was doing some light exercises when Tanna went to the counter and took away the complainant’s flat keys and entered her residence, opened the safe and stoel the ornaments.
“She returned to the gym,” DCP Akbar Pathan said. “The complainant realised about the theft the next day when her husband opened the cupboard.”
Pathan said scanning the CCTV footage did not help as Tanna, it seems, had switched off the power. The police then scanned the building CCTV footage and found Tanna’s movements suspicious. They also learnt that Tanna had been arrested in 2010 in a theft case.