Domestic abuse forces 4 women to steal, form gang

Nagpur: Four housewives-turned-thieves, rounded up by Pachpaoli police team this week, claimed during interrogation that domestic violence forced them to take up thefts for easy money. Their attempt to become vegetable vendors had failed in the past, leaving them in further financial mess, they said.Financial concerns apart, their husbands’ relentless demand for money to consume liquor, physical violence and doubting their character had forced these women to do something drastic to get easy and fast money.

The women said their alcoholic husbands were jobless, leaving them with the responsibility of providing for the family, especially the children, or starving and suffering.The gang of Gajendrabai Gosavi (40), Savita Gosavi (30), Jyoti Gosavi (30), and Pavitra Gosavi (35), and their autorickshaw driver-cum-accomplice, Mohd Anwar Khan (32), was rounded up after their involvement in theft of batteries from an inverter at Kashmiri Lane, near Kamal Chowk, in June was reported to the police.Following clues from CCTV footage, the Pachpaoli police team of senior inspector Vaibhav Jadhav, sub-inspectors TM Dhakulkar, Jeetendra Bhargav, head constable Gnyaneshwar Bhoge, constables Gagan Yadav, Shubhangi Borkar, Chitra Nandanwar and others first managed to zero down upon Khan, who subsequently helped nab the four women.It’s learnt Gajendrabai and Savita had previous records at Gittikhadan and Kotwali police stations. The cops feel the gang may be behind several other thefts but has only been cracked now.The Pachpaoli police have also cracked another case in which the gang had stolen compressors of an AC kept outside a shop near Azam Shah Chowk.Police said the women would pose as garbage cleaners and sweepers in the day to go around the city to recee and observe valuables kept outside houses, shops or offices like batteries, AC compressors etc.“The women would step out between 2.30am and 3am, call up their autorickshaw driver, and head towards localities where they had spotted something worth stealing earlier in the day,” said the cops. “The women had also tied up with scrap dealers to whom they would hand over the stolen materials for whatever price they got easily,” the source added.