The woman asked Delhi Police to provide CCTV footage for her personal viewing. (File)
More than two months after an Australian woman got an FIR lodged alleging that her jewellery was stolen from her handbag during an X-ray check at the airport in Delhi, a US-based Indian citizen has made a similar complaint to the Delhi Police.
Interestingly, sources in the Delhi Police and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) said that in both cases CCTV footage does not show anyone interfering with the women's belongings or any suspicious movement of anyone including security personnel present on duty.
In the latest case, Swathi Reddy, who flew from Virginia and landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on March 13, went through the immigration check and proceeded to take the connecting flight.
According to her, while passing through the security check, her luggage with a jewellery box came up in the security scanner and went to the other side where bags are automatically diverted for questionable items while she herself was at the enclosed screening area.
“The security man who I still remember vividly asked me questions about my whereabouts and the items in my bag. He asked me to take out my charger, headphones and mouse from the bag. He mentioned that there were keys and jewellery in the bag (during its scanning) to which I confirmed,” Ms Reddy said in her police complaint.
She added, “After removing the electronic items, he said he needed to run the bag through the scanner again. He did not ask me to take out the jewellery. He started talking with me after that, asking me questions like where I was from and where I was going.” Ms Reddy said that she took her bag from the belt and left the area. She came to know about the theft when she reached home but she said that during the whole journey, her bag remained with her.
“The bag was out of my sight only twice. Once during X-Ray screening and the second time when I kept it in the overhead storage bin in the aircraft. I don't think the theft can take place in the aircraft when I was aware of every single movement of people around me,” Ms Reddy told PTI over phone from Virginia.
“What is very surprising is that inside the bag, there was a purse in which I had kept the jewellery box along with wallet, credit cards, etc. Only the box was missing which shows that the theft was committed with prior knowledge of the location of the jewellery box,” she added.
Ms Reddy called the Delhi airport police and spoke to Sub-inspector Abhay Singh who recommended that she should file an FIR.
“I filed an e-FIR on March 15,” she said, adding that the jewellery, including her mangalsutra, that went missing was of immense sentimental value to her as most of the ornaments were given to her by her late mother-in-law.
To find out whether the theft was an isolated incident, Ms Reddy checked online and was surprised to read news about a similar incident at the Delhi airport.
In January this year, PTI had reported that an Australian woman, Akeshni Singh Gour, lodged an FIR for a similar incident that had taken place with her in August 2022 when she was traveling from Sydney to Hyderabad via Delhi.
She alleged that her jewellery and foreign currencies worth ₹ 50,000 were stolen from her bag during an X-ray check when she was transferring from the international to the domestic section at the Delhi airport.
Ms Gour said she realised the theft after she reached Hyderabad and the strong suspicion of involvement of security personnel was due to the fact that throughout the whole journey, the only time her backpack containing valuables was out of her sight was when she went through the screening.
Ms Reddy contacted Ms Gour through LinkedIn and shared her plight. Now, both the women want their cases to be clubbed and investigated properly, suspecting that the thefts have some link with the people deployed at the X-ray check point.
“There might be a possibility that after knowing the location of the jewellery box in the bag at the X-ray screening, information was being passed to someone to do the con job,” Ms Reddy said. Ms Gour too felt the same way as her jewellery box was at the bottom in the bag and only a person who had prior knowledge could steal it.
Both the victims have asked the Delhi Police, which is investigating their cases, to provide them the CCTV footage for their personal viewing.
CISF sources have denied any wrongdoing.
“People try to carry gold, foreign currencies, etc worth crores of rupees illegally and the CISF personnel recover and deposit them with the concerned government authorities. Why will they indulge in such a petty crime? The allegations are baseless and even the CCTV footage confirms that,” a senior CISF official said.