In a shocking incident in south Delhi’s Jangpura, a 55-year-old woman and her 30-year-old daughter were arrested for stealing gold bars and jewelry after they were mistakenly given the keys to another person’s bank locker by the staff of a nationalized bank. The theft came to light when the rightful owner of the locker discovered his valuables missing, prompting a police investigation.
The incident occurred at a bank in Jangpura, where the locker owner had repeatedly faced issues accessing his locker due to a malfunction with the lock. On September 4, after several attempts to access his locker, the bank staff finally broke it open. To his dismay, the locker was completely empty, and all of his valuables, including gold bars and jewelry, had been stolen. The man immediately alerted the bank and filed a formal complaint with the police.
The victim, in his statement to the police, revealed that he had been trying to access his locker for several days, but due to technical issues with the lock, it remained unopened. “For the past couple of days, I had been going to the bank to get the locker opened, but there was some issue with its lock… on September 4, the locker-in-charge called me there and got the lock opened,” the complainant told Hindustan Times. When the locker was finally opened, the horrifying realization set in—his valuables were missing.
Upon investigating, the bank’s records showed that on July 10, two women had accessed the locker. The two, identified as Shashi Ramani, 55, and her daughter Aashi Ramani, 30, had been allowed access to the locker after presenting valid documents and undergoing the necessary verifications. However, the locker they were mistakenly granted access to was not theirs, but the complainant’s.
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According to the police, the duo took advantage of the mix-up and seized the opportunity to steal the valuables from the locker. Despite being mistakenly handed someone else’s locker keys, the two women did not report the error to the bank staff. Instead, they proceeded to steal the gold bars and jewelry stored inside.
A First Information Report (FIR) was registered on September 5 based on the victim’s complaint. Following the FIR, police launched an investigation and tracked down the mother-daughter duo. Both were arrested soon after, and the stolen items, including the gold bars and jewelry, were recovered from their possession.
The incident has raised serious concerns about the security protocols in place at the bank. The fact that two individuals could gain access to a locker that did not belong to them, despite going through verification processes, suggests a lapse in the bank’s internal procedures. The bank is currently conducting an internal inquiry into how the keys to the wrong locker were handed over and what went wrong during the verification process.
As the investigation continues, the case serves as a stark reminder of the importance of robust security measures in banking institutions, particularly when it comes to safeguarding customers’ valuables stored in lockers.
