50-year-old housewife arrested for lifting handbags

Sathya was apprehended from Rani Bagh market on Friday by the husband of a woman whose bag she had allegedly lifted earlier, P Karunakaran, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Norht-West), said.

Eight mobile phones, a laptop , some ATM cards in different names and 37 handbags and purses, two gold chains, 10 Singapore Dollars, Rs 6,000/- cash and two gold chains and a pair of ear-rings have been recovered from her house, police claimed.

"Her family fell into financial stress after her husband got out of joint family business....Sathya wanted to make good for the losses incurred by her family. She started lifting hand bags and purses of women in crowded markets," Karunakaran said.

"Her family members once discovered about this and asked her to stop doing this. But she told them she is a kleptomania and cannot not resist the temptation of lifting hand bags.

"But after much persuasion she promised that she would change herself. However, she kept visiting various crowded markets and was stealing handbags and purses," adding she would keep the stolen articles secretely in an almirah in her house.

She allegedly used to carry a big hand bag containing four to five small purses of different colour and shapes. At times she used to remove the purse of the victim and then would slide the same in her big hand bag or used to replace it with the similar purse kept in her bag, he said.

Sathya had allegedly stolen the hand bag of a woman last Wednesday but the victim had not complained. However, her husband, who had seen the CCTV footage of the incident, spotted her in the same market two days later and handed her to police.