Woman’s ear lobe torn off in snatching rerun
TWO INCIDENTS IN 3 DAYS Both crimes happened at same spot in Uttam Nagar; people just looked on; cops probe if same man involved
NEW DELHI: Two days after a snatcher tore off a woman’s ear lobes while pulling out her gold earrings in west Delhi’s Uttam Nagar, another woman faced a similar attack on the same road on Thursday afternoon.
Kamla Bharti, 54, needed three stitches in her right ear after a man pulled hard to snatch her earrings on Thursday. Her left ear too bled but she did not suffer a grievous injury as the earring came off easily, she said.
On Tuesday, Vandana Sharma, 47, had to undergo plastic surgery on both her ears after a snatcher targeted her near the Uttam Nagar (East) metro station on the busy Najafgarh Road.
Both women said people just looked on, neither chasing the snatcher nor helping them after the attack. An investigator not authorised to speak to the media said the same snatcher might be behind both the incidents.
“The snatcher in both the cases was described to be in his mid-20s. Both snatchers were on foot and grabbed the earrings in the same manner. We have CCTV footage in both cases but are yet to identify anyone,” said the officer.
On Thursday, Bharti had gone to the Uttam Nagar fruit market around 2 pm when the snatcher targeted her. “I was standing on the divider under the metro line waiting to cross the road. Two men were standing nearby. Suddenly, one of them approached from behind and tried to grab both my gold earrings. The left earring came off easily but my right ear lobe tore as he pulled hard and roughly,” said Bharti, a homemaker.
Unlike Sharma who sat down on the road because of the “excruciating pain”, Bharti chased the snatcher for nearly 100 metres. This spot was 13 metro pillars away from where Sharma was targeted on Tuesday evening.
“There were people all around but no one helped me. I abandoned the chase when the snatcher mingled with the crowd and went out of sight near the bus terminal nearby,” said Bharti.
“My ears were bleeding but no one from the public cared. One woman said the Uttam Nagar police station was nearby, so I walked there,” she said.
Since Bharti does not use a mobile phone, she used a policeman’s phone to call her son.
Bharti was told the crime spot fell in the jurisdiction of the Bindapur police station but a policeman accompanied her to DDU Hospital.
“I was given three stitches. Since I was given an injection yesterday, I could bear the pain then. But it has worsened,” she said. A case of causing hurt during robbery has been registered.
Though police figures show that snatching and robberies dipped in 2017 in Delhi compared to the previous year, snatchers have been turning violent of late.
Last August, a woman died after motorcycle-borne snatchers pulled her off a running autorickshaw in south Delhi’s Hauz Khas in an attempt to steal her handbag.