Woman with sari ‘pocket’ caught stealing on camera

CHENNAI: A woman who had been stealing goods from supermarkets in the city for the past five months has been arrested in T Nagar.

Police who identified the arrested woman as Amudha said she used to conceal the items inside her blouse as well as in a secret ‘pocket’ she had stitched inside her sari.

Police said the 38-year-old Thiruvottiyur resident visited a supermarket in T Nagar on Wednesday. “She stole grocery items including dal and oil as well as other beauty products and hid them in her sari before leaving the store,” said an investigating officer.

When staff at the supermarket checked the CCTV camera footage, they found a woman suspiciously walking around the shop.

She was seen stuffing a few sachets of shampoo and other items inside her blouse and products like dal and oil into the secret ‘pocket’ in her sari, police sources said.

The staff caught hold of the woman when she returned to the supermarket.

She was handed over to the Mambalam police station where she confessed that she had stolen from a few other supermarkets across the city in the last five months.

“She would sell the stolen products near her house in Thiruvottiyur at a cheaper price,” an investigating officer said.

A senior police officer said that the internet and social media platforms were the new “training schools” for such offenders. “Videos of many such cases of shoplifting can be found on YouTube and other sites and they may have inspired the woman to try her luck,” the officer added.

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