Two drunk men find cash lying on ground; Rs 3.5 lakh recovered by Mangaluru cops

MANGALURU: In a case abounding in bizarre twists, Mangaluru city police recovered Rs 3.5 lakh in cash from two tipplers, who had allegedly chanced upon the money near the Pumpwell Flyover while sleeping off their hangover.
Mangaluru city police commissioner N Shashi Kumar, interacting with representatives of the media on Wednesday, said that Shivaraj, a mechanic cum cleaner, found the cash stashed in a plastic cover or box when he woke up at a parking lot around 6.30am on November 26. An alcoholic, Shivraj was reportedly lying on the ground when he found the money. He was joined by his friend Thukaram soon after finding the cash, and while drinking at a liquor outlet nearby, decided to share the money between them. Unfortunately for Shivaraj, he had not counted the money, and when Thukaram asked for a share of the loot, parted with six bundles of cash - each worth Rs 50,000.
Having unwittingly parted with a chunk of the money, Shivaraj dozed off again. It was when he found that he was left with only Rs 49,500 that he started having doubts over the exact amount of money he had found. Local shopkeepers who found Shivaraj with the cash alerted police, who recovered the money he had, Shashi kumar added.
On Tuesday, a report carried by a vernacular daily newspaper suspected that Shivaraj had found Rs 10 lakh, going on to add that it could possibly be hawala money.
Thukaram's son learnt, through social media, of police being on the lookout for a friend of Shivaraj's to whom the latter had vouchsafed a large sum of money. He promptly returned Rs 2,99,500 to police.
Mangaluru city police commissioner said that, in the event of police finding unclaimed cash or valuables, it is entered into the respective station's general dairy. In this case, Shashi Kumar said, Shivaraj was not given a receipt since the cops had hoped for those who had lost the money to approach them. "We have documented this incident under Section 75 of the Karnataka Police Act. We are currently in the process of going through closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage collected from the location where Shivaraj found the money. We will also probe the possibility of any lapse on the part of police personnel, and take appropriate action. The investigation will help us ascertain the exact amount of cash Shivaraj found. The people who misplaced the money can approach us to claim the same with the necessary documents," Shashi Kumar said.