Bag laden with gold left in taxi recovered

MUMBAI: The Shahu Nagar police on Wednesday traced and handed over a bag containing gold ornaments worth ₹7 lakh to a woman, who had forgotten the bag in a taxi, within four hours after the owner reported the incident.

The woman identified as Megha Prashant Andhare (45) had taken a taxi from Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar railway station to her brother’s house in Shahu Nagar, where she was going to celebrate Bhai Dooj.

After the police handed over the bag to the owner, Andhare said, “Fearing house-breakings in my area, I had carried all the gold along with me to wear it on the occasion of Bhai Dooj. I was heart-broken when I realised that I forgot the gold ornaments in the taxi.”

“Andhare was carrying three bags. While getting off the taxi, she kept one of the bags on the back seat and paid the taxi driver. The woman saw her brother at his shop and forgot the bag in the vehicle,” said Harish Deshmukh, sub-inspector (SI), Sahu Nagar police station.

At 2pm, Andhare approached the police station after she realised that her bag containing gold jewellery was missing.

Using the number of the taxi caught on CCTV, police identified the driver as Kalim Khan (48). The police traced the taxi driver, who had reached Nerul in Navi Mumbai by then and had tried to hand over the bag to the police. However, he was asked to go to Shahu Nagar police station to hand over the property. Khan told the police that he had not opened the bag and was not aware that it contained gold ornaments.

HT PHOTO Megha Andhare got her gold back within hours