Man pretending to be deaf, mute steals jewellery from shop:Crime unfolds in broad daylight in Bhopal’s Chowk Bazaar; incident captured on CCTV

A cunning thief executed a film-style theft at a jewellery shop in Bhopal’s Chowk Bazaar on Friday afternoon, the police reported on Monday. The accused, as per police, posed as a deaf and mute beggar, who entered the shop and asked for alms. When the shop staff refused, he cleverly waited, then stole a parcel containing silver ornaments worth Rs 1.25 lakh from the counter before fleeing the scene, according to the police. The entire incident was captured on the shop’s CCTV camera, helping police reconstruct the sequence of events. Thief conceals parcel under a sheet of paper Kotwali police station house officer (SHO) Kashiram Kushwaha told Bhaskar English that the incident unfolded at a shop named Riddhi Siddhi Jewellers. It is owned by one Naresh Vaswani (50), a resident of Bairagarh. Located on Ibrahimpura Road, the shop had just received a delivery from a courier around 3 PM on Friday. Shortly after, the accused entered, gesturing for money. When a female staff member asked him to leave, he cunningly placed a sheet of paper over the parcel, concealed it beneath the paper, and walked out unnoticed. CCTV footage reveals the crime When the staff later noticed the parcel missing, they reviewed the CCTV footage, which clearly showed the suspect committing the theft. Preliminary investigations revealed that the man had been conducting reconnaissance around the shop for several days. The Kotwali Police have registered a case and have begun tracing the accused using the CCTV footage. The cops suspect the thief may have targeted other shops in the area using a similar modus operandi.