HANDCUFF HAND CUFF AREST
Mumbai: A domestic help allegedly stole Rs 10 lakh in cash from a secret compartment in the bedroom ceiling of her employer’s elderly parents’ home in Mumbai. The theft was discovered on Sept 9 when the wife of the 49-year-old corporate lawyer, a Bandra (West) resident who earlier practised at Bombay High Court, visited their parents’ home to collect the money and found it missing. Bandra police arrested domestic help Tanuja Mandal (31) soon after an FIR was registered on Monday.
Because no one else had visited the Bandra (West) flat the previous week, the lawyer and his wife, also a lawyer, suspected Mandal.
A Bandra police station officer said Mandal broke down during questioning and admitted stealing the cash to buy a vehicle for her husband. A police officer said they detained Mandal after verifying the CCTV camera footages from the building and the guest entry record at the gate and seized th money. The lawyer had kept the cash in the secret compartment to pay for his daughter’s engineering admission. Mandal continued working at the home even after allegedly stealing the money. She had worked for the senior citizen couple as a caretaker and domestic worker for a year and discovered the compartment while cleaning.
Acting on the complaint, a team supervised by DCP (West Zone-2) Mohit Garg recovered the entire stolen cash from Mandal.
A police officer said the lawyer couple had borrowed the money from family, friends and relatives to pay their daughter’s engineering college admission fees. The team comprised ACP Adikrao Pol, senior inspector Ravindra Salunkhe, inspector Ajay Lingnurkar, assistant inspector Yash Palwe, and other personnel.