Wedding jewellery theft charge on help hired from ayah centre

A 52-year-old domestic help has been arrested for allegedly stealing wedding jewellery worth around Rs 5 lakh from a flat in New Town where she was employed.

Mental health practitioner Amrita Panda, who stays in a standalone apartment near Eco Park, had hired the woman through an ayah centre based in south Kolkata’s Dhakuria, an officer of Bidhannagar commissionerate said.

The officer said Panda had got the ornaments from her parents’ house on CIT Road for her wedding on August 15.

“She had kept the ornaments inside a wardrobe in her bedroom. The help got to know about this. She took the jewellery out of the wardrobe and hid it,” said the officer.

Panda told The Telegraph that she had hired Sunita Mukherjee through the Dhakuria-based ayah centre a few days prior to her wedding as her regular help was on leave.

“I had kept the jewellery inside the wardrobe underneath the clothes that had been purchased for the wedding. I had not suspected her initially. I thought I had left them inside the car. I checked the car thoroughly as well as asked my other guests but none of them could say anything. It was then that I lodged a complaint,” said Panda.

According to her, they had organised a small gathering in their flat for the wedding because of the Covid-19 restrictions. “We had also requested her to give the jewellery back if she had taken it so that I could wear them on the wedding day. But she told us that she had no idea about any jewellery,” said Panda.

An investigating officer of Eco Park police station where Panda and her husband Somtirtha Majumder lodged the complaint said Mukherjee had initially denied any involvement in the theft.

“But her statements were inconsistent. We started grilling her and she finally said that she had hidden the ornaments inside a plastic bag which she had put in her body cavity,” said the officer.

The cops then took her to a government-run healthcare facility. All the ornaments  were recovered.

On Thursday, the police returned them to Panda.

The deputy commissioner of New Town, Bishop Sarkar, said: “We had started a probe immediately based on Panda's complaint. We had sent a team to her house where the officers spoke to all guests individually before zeroing in on Mukherjee as the prime suspect.”

According to another officer, everybody who hires help from centres should demand their identity documents like Aadhaar card or voter ID card and submit all the details of the house help, along with their photographs, to the local police station.

“However, in most cases people do not do this,” said the officer.

Mukherjee has been charged under various sections of the IPC, including 379 (theft) and 381 (theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master) among others.