Gold Chains

HOWRAH: On Wednesday, a 35-year-old man was caught red-handed while snatching a gold chain and a pendant. The snatcher swallowed the stolen items to get away with the theft. On Friday, he was operated upon and the chain was retrieved.

The surgery was performed by Pabitra Deb Mukherjee and Jagannath Mukherjee at Howrah General Hospital. A 30-cm incision was made in Sohail Seikh's abdomen to retrieve the gold chain and the pendant. However, the doctors could only find the chain in his stomach. There was no trace of the pendant.

The owner of the jewelleery item, Komal Agarwal, told police the chain and pendent were worth 50,000. Howrah's DSP (North) Anuradha Mondol said, "The gold chain has been recovered, but there was no trace of the pendant as claimed by Agarwal."

Initially, in the first two attempts, the X-ray didn't reveal that the gold chain was in his intestine. However, on the third attempt, the chain was traced in a dense mass in his lower abdomen. The chain had reached the duodenum and was at a critical place which was life threatening. Seikh was writhing in pain since Wednesday night and the physicians informed him that he required immediate surgery or he could die. Unable to bear the pain, Sheikh consented to surgery.

Komal is yet to get her chain. When she was informed that she has to go to court to claim it, a miffed Komal claimed, "The police has asked me to go and prove to the court that the snatched chain is mine. I don't know whether I will get back the Tirupati pendant. This is nothing but a way of harassing people." Police said Sohail is yet to regain consciousness and is in hospital under police custody.

On Wednesday afternoon, Komal, a resident of Golabari's Nandibagan area, was going towards Burrabazar along with her 10-year-old son Bikash in a taxi. Just before Howrah Bridge, the taxi stopped at a traffic signal on GR Road. Suddenly, Seikh came and snatched the chain from Komal's neck.

He was trying to escape but Komal got off the taxi and started shouting for help. As there was a traffic snarl, Seikh could not run away and was caught by locals at the spot. To hide the chain and the pendant, Seikh swallowed both.