The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Rise in crimes by women

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 19, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Rise in crimes by women

Over the past few months, the police have come across several cases of women being involved in robbery and kidnapping, says K.V. Subramanya

MUCH HAS been spoken and written about crimes against women. But of late, incidents of women themselves indulging in crime seem to be on the rise in Bangalore.

A look at the criminal cases booked against women in the past few years shows that they were hardly involved in heinous cases such as robberies and kidnappings. Involvement of women was limited to immoral trafficking and minor theft cases.

But in the past one month the city police have unearthed cases of women, along with their male accomplices, indulging in robberies as well as kidnapping. For instance, on Thursday, a young woman, posing as a sub-inspector of police, waylaid a hotel accountant and robbed him of a gold chain and a gold ring on Bull Temple Road.

Recently, the Cubbon Park police, who rescued a taxi driver from a gang of kidnappers, found that a woman had played an important role in the crime.

Around 11.30 p.m. on November 3, Harish, the taxi driver, was returning home after dropping a passenger at the airport. While he was driving near the Mayo Hall, a woman waved at him and sought a drop.

As he stopped the vehicle, five of her accomplices barged into the van and kidnapped him. Later they telephoned the owner of the taxi agency, and demanded a ransom of Rs. 1 lakh to release Harish.

Though the police arrested the five kidnappers and rescued Harish, they are yet to trace the woman member of the gang.

A few days ago, the South division police arrested six people, including three women, who lured software engineers into a trap through the Internet and robbed them of mobile phones and gold ornaments.

According to the police, using female names, Robin Subbaiah, a college dropout, and his accomplice, Masood, befriended people on the Internet chat room.

Claiming themselves to be women, they gave their telephone numbers to the persons with whom they chatted. When their new friends telephoned, Robin and Masood made their women accomplices, who spoke English fluently, to speak to them.

The women invited the new friends to a particular place for dinner. After dinner, the new friends who had "ulterior motives" took the women to some isolated places. The other members of the gang followed them in a van, threatened them and robbed them of valuables. The police say the three arrested women, Yogitha (22), Ayesha (24) and Naheeda (28), are from middle-class families.

In yet another incident on November 8, the Chandra Layout police arrested five women on charges of theft and recovered from them gold jewellery and silver articles, together worth Rs. 50,000.

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