A 47-year-old woman was allegedly abducted on Friday from Khadki Bazaar by a cab driver and his three accomplices, including two women, and robbed of her gold jewellery valued at Rs90,000.
The suspects offered to drop her near her home, but drove her around the city for more than 2 hours at knifepoint. She was finally let off inside the new Katraj tunnel.
The victim, Ramabai Digambar Suryavanshi, working as a conservancy staff in the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, lodged an FIR at the Khadki police station. A resident of Ganeshnagar, Bopkhel, she had finished shopping at Khadki Bazaar at 3.30 pm and was waiting for an autorickshaw.
When the suspects, in an Indica car, offered her a lift, she agreed. “Instead of going towards Bopkhel, the accused took a left turn near Bopodi chowk on the Bombay-Pune highway towards Wakdewadi. When I asked them about it, he said he had to drop one of the passengers there,” Suryavanshi said.
But the driver took a U-turn near Khadki railway crossing and drove towards the city outskirts. It was then that the women in the car forcefully took away her jewellery at knifepoint.
Around 6pm, the suspects stopped the car inside the new Katraj tunnel and forced Suryavanshi to disembark. They threatened to kill her if she disclosed the incident to anyone. After that, they fled towards Satara, the police said.
Chain snatching
In two incidents in 24 hours, two women fell prey to chain snatchers. Anita Chaudhari, 58, a resident of Pradhikaran, was attacked on Sunday when she went to buy groceries. An unidentified man on a motorbike snatched two chains, valued at Rs37,000 and fled.
In the other incident, a resident of Kothrud, Shila Khedkar, 47, complained to the Kothrud police station that two men on a motorcycle accosted her when she got off a bus, snatched two gold chains valued at Rs70,500, and fled, the police said.
Trader robbed of Rs3.15 lakh
Four robbers robbed a Pimpri-based businessman of Rs3.15 lakh and fled on a two-wheeler. Raju Nagpal (48), a resident of PWD Quarters in Pimpri, lodged an FIR at Pimpri police station.
