Mumbai: Rat runs away with Rs 5 lakh worth of gold

The Dindoshi police hand over the packet to a relieved Sundari Planibal

Sundari Planibel is one fortunate woman. Not only did she accidentally give away her 100-gram gold ornaments worth about Rs 5 lakh to a beggar, she got them back the same day, thanks to Dindoshi police. On Wednesday, she was to mortgage them to repay loans taken for her daughter's wedding.

The jewellery that was recovered

The domestic help was given a packet of vada pav by her employer, which she kept in her bag with the jewellery. But in a strange turn of events, it ended up in garbage where rats then dragged it into a gutter.

Sundari Planibel's employer gave her vada pav in a packet, asking her to give it to some poor person. Planibel kept it in the bag in which she had carried her jewellery

On leaving her employer's house, Planibel spotted a beggar sitting with her children. She handed over her bag to the woman, forgetting about the jewellery in it

As the vada pav was stale and hard, the beggar woman who was going somewhere in a rickshaw, threw the bag onto a pile of garbage on the road

At the bank, Planibel realised she did not have the bag of gold jewellery. She wanted to mortgage the jewellery to repay loans taken for her daughter's wedding

She went to Dindoshi police who located the beggar, and after her claim, spent over four hours on CCTV footage at the garbage pile to find the bag that rats dragged to a gutter

The police gave the bag to Planibel. She was full of gratitude for them. Somnath Gharge, DCP, Zone XII said they worked hard to find it. Illustrations/Uday Mohite