BANGALORE: About 40 people visited the office of the Lokayuka to see whether jewellery stolen from them is among the ornaments recovered by the Lokayukta sleuths from some police officials.

The Lokayukta officials are displaying the jewellery for identification by the people on Tuesday and Wednesday. This follows a request from a number of people, who wanted to inspect the jewellery. The ornaments seized from suspended police inspector Mir Arif Ali were displayed on Tuesday. Those recovered from suspended Inspector in the City Crime Branch's Fraud and Misappropriation Wing Shami-Ur-Rehman will be displayed on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, people, mostly from Koramangala and Jeevanbima Nagar, saw the jewellery displayed. The valuables included ear-rings, necklaces and studs. But none of them could identify the jewellery as belonging to them.

The people welcomed the measure of the Lokayukta police for facilitating inspection of the recovered jewellery. "Though it is difficult to identify the jewellery stolen from our house, such a measure at least gives us a ray of hope of finding our valuables," said an elderly person from Koramangala. He had come along with this daughter and son-in-law to see whether any of the jewellery pertains to the ornaments worth Rs. 80,000 stolen from his house a year ago.

However, the Lokayukta officials are in a thinking of ways of identifying the real owner of the jewellery, if anyone claims them.

"In the cases of theft, the police identify owners of the jewellery by taking voluntary statement from the accused. This statement is corroborated with victim's complaint and the jewellery is returned after obtaining orders for the jurisdictional court," a senior Lokayukta police official said.

"Here, it is difficult to establish a similar link," the official said. But if anyone claims to be the owner of any jewellery, he or she would be asked to file an application before the jurisdictional sessions court.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail