Six “foreigners” walk into a jewellery shop, lift bangles, flee.
A baby lifter walks into the ICU of Patna Medical College and Hospital, grab a newborn, flee.

The twin cases that rocked Patna recently have one thing in common: Women.

In both the cases, cops are clueless about the criminals’ whereabouts because they were women and had no past records in the books of the police.

On February 8, six foreigners, suspected to be from the East in western attire, entered the showroom of Tanishq on Frazer Road. They casually entered the showroom and walked out with a set of eight bangles worth Rs 8 lakh posing as customers. They had executed a well-planned robbery, which the police are yet to crack.

Though the police had the images of the criminals, caught on closed-circuit cameras of the showroom, the men-in-uniform could not manage to nab any of them so far.

“It was a planned and a daring act. They (six women) had Mongoloid looks. Police teams raided places in Bodhgaya to find them. But we have not been able to trace any of them. Normally, we crack such cases within a week or 10 days. But this case is complicated. All Buddhist festivals in Bihar are over now. We have not been able to make any breakthrough in the case so far,” Vivekanand, the assistant superintendent of police (law and order), said.

If the six women eloped with a set of bangles, another in the capital’s premier health hub disappeared with a newborn.

On May 18, a two-day-old infant born at the maternity ward of the PMCH was stolen from the ICU ward. The infant belonged to one Kalavati Devi, a resident of Arwal.

“Though the infant was recovered, there are many unanswered questions we are looking into. We are trying to nab Meena, who picked up the infant from the hospital,” Patna senior superintendent of police Manu Maharaj had said.

Three persons, including two women, were arrested. They confessed about the involvement of one Meena, who was hired by three people, to steal an infant from any hospital.

“A childless couple were desperate for a baby and hence the conspiracy was hatched. Meena was hired for the job. She is a professional and is a part of a gang who is into stealing babies, on demand, from government hospitals. Meena’s images have been captured in CCTVs of the ward in which Kalavanti was admitted. However, we have not been able to nab her. Her arrest would lead us to the gang she works for,” a police officer said.

The officer added: “In both the cases, the accused didn’t have criminal records. In the case of men, the police have records of most of them, which makes the job of hunting them down easier. This is the reason why the women accused are roaming free. We need one clue to arrest them.”