Granny takes on thieves, scares 'em off

A daring 86-year-old woman managed to scare away two motorcycle-borne thieves who, pretending to be policemen, asked her to hand over her gold jewellery worth around Rs3 lakh to them. 

Vijaya Joshi, a resident of Palghar (West), had gone to the temple on Sunday evening and was on her way back when the incident took place. 

“I was walking back home from the temple as usual when two men, aged between 35 and 40 years, approached me. They told me they were policemen, and asked me to remove all my gold jewellery and hand it to them. They said it was unsafe to wear gold as someone had recently been robbed and murdered,” said Joshi. 

But the octogenarian was not to be fooled. “As I had heard recently from a friend how thieves fool people in this manner, I told them that if they are policemen, they should find the culprit and not disturb the residents,” she said.

Joshi continued walking, but the men came back and demanded that she put her jewellery in a handkerchief and hand it to them. She said, “At this, I got angry and tried to hit them with my walking cane. I also started alerting people around me, which is when the men sped away.”

Anil Kumbhare, the district superintendent of Thane rural police, said, “The alertness of the 86-year-old woman saved her from becoming a victim. We will organise meetings for the public to make them aware of such fake policemen who target senior citizens.”

@ImranFazalDNA