Hotel President on Frazer Road in Patna. Telegraph picture

Patna, June 24: Jewellery worth Rs 1 lakh was allegedly stolen from a city hotel room of Bangalore resident Shivani Shah.

Shah had checked into room number 101 of President Hotel on Frazer Road after arriving here on June 22 for attending a four-day seminar on organic farming. She lodged an FIR today at the Kotwali police station.

The seminar, “Jaivik Bihar International Conference” was being hosted at Hotel Maurya. It ended today.

“I left the hotel for the conference soon after checking in. I have to attend a wedding after the conference. Hence, I had the jewellery in a small bag in my luggage. When I came to the lobby of the hotel on the first day, the employee at the reception asked for the key of my room. I handed it over to him. I was at the conference for the whole day and came back around 10.30pm. I was too tired to check my luggage and fell asleep,” Shivani, who works as a campaigner with a Bangalore-based international voluntary organisation, said.

She added: “I did not check the luggage next morning as well and went to the conference. This time, I carried the key with me. I returned around 7pm and checked my luggage to find that the small jewellery bag was missing. When I did not find the bag, I called home to check if I had left it there. Then, I informed the hotel management. To my surprise, they refused to take responsibility and said I did not have any proof that I was carrying the jewellery.”

When contacted, the employees of the hotel claimed that Shah was at fault.

Parmanand Pathak, a hotel employee who manages the reception, said: “The hotel has little to do with this. The day she checked in, no one entered her room to clean it. She never told us that she was carrying jewellery. We have a locker facility in the hotel and guests who have expensive things inform us. The expensive items are kept in the lockers. We cannot check all our guests and the employees. This is an old hotel and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

An officer at the Kotwali police station said: “The hotel employees are being questioned. We are doing whatever we can. Investigations are on.”

Shah left Patna today. Till evening, the men in uniform had not contacted her with any fresh information.