Shop-owners of the Park Street-Shakespeare Sarani area have been warned by the police to watch out for a gang of four women who could walk out with valuables.

The warning was issued after the city police department recorded three thefts in shops in the past month. Although police are still in the dark about the gang members? identity, they were sure that the same gang had a hand in all three thefts.

?A preliminary investigation has revealed that they target shops, especially those that sell garments. After interrogating the victims, we gathered that they pretended to be rich customers. Some keep shop employees busy, while their accomplices decamp with valuables,? said Gyanwant Singh, deputy commissioner of police (detective department).

Rachna Singh, a boutique owner on Middleton Row, who was poorer by more than Rs 2 lakh on Tuesday evening, was the gang?s latest victim.

Earlier, the gang had targeted two shops on Wood Street and Middleton Street.

Recounting the theft, Rachna said that around 6.50 pm on Tuesday, two women in their mid-40s entered her two-storeyed shop. ?Pretending to be rich customers, they told me in Punjabi that they wanted to see good saris. I told them to go upstairs, where we have a huge stock of high-quality saris,? she stated.

As soon as the women went upstairs, two others of the same age group, accompanied by a man in his late 30s, entered. Both the groups behaved as if they did not know each other. ?They, too, asked us in Punjabi to show some high-quality clothes. We brought out our collection,? Rachna recalled. ?The two women came down and told me that they had selected a few saris and I should make out a bill.?

The trio then went to the first floor to inspect more clothes. After a few minutes, they came down and started selecting clothes from the ground-floor counter.

?We placed almost all our valuable collections before them,? Rachna said. ?By then, the first two women had left the shop, saying they would return after two hours and collect the saris.

?The second group then started bargaining. It wanted to buy a sari worth Rs 10,000 for Rs 2,000. We did not agree and they left,? she said. ?We were in for a shock when we started taking stock of our collection after both the groups had left. We found that 10 saris, valued at Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 each, and more garments valued at over than a lakh were missing.?

Rachna admitted she had no idea how the gang walked out with the garments. ?Six of us were in the shop, but we had no idea about what happened,? she said.

An officer of Shakespeare Sarani police station, where Rachna lodged a complaint, said the gang cleaned out two other shops in a similar manner.