Woman foils loot attempt with pressure cooker

MUZAFFARPUR: Usha Devi (55) not only saved herself from loot attempt by two armed criminals but also forced them to retreat when she started attacking them with the kitchenware she had purchased only a few minutes back on Friday evening.
Usha, wife of a retired government officer, had purchased a pressure cooker and three silver coins from Kalyani market late Friday evening for Dhanteras festival and she had only Rs 410 in her purse.She was returning to her Lakshminarayan Colony residence in Bela area on a rickshaw. As soon as her rickshaw reached her colony, two masked youths riding a motorcycle tried to snatch her gold chain and purse.
Without getting nervous, she started assaulting the criminals with the pressure cooker. She raised an alarm but none of the passersby came to her rescue. She fought alone and kept on beating the duo with the pressure cooker. One of the criminals threatened to shoot her with a pistol but she did not stop hitting them repeatedly.
Ultimately, her alarm attracted some mohalla people and as soon as the criminals found themselves being surrounded, they sped away.
Several such incidents have occurred in the colony in recent past but the Bela and Mithanpura police have failed to take any of the “petty” incidents seriously and the young criminals have succeeded in creating panic in the locality off and on.
Senior SP Ranjeet Kumar Mishra said the police suspect the hands of some outsider youths residing in local lodges, posing that they were preparing for competitive examinations. Such lodges have been identified under Kazimohammadpur police station area and they are being searched by the police. The youths having motorcycles are particularly on the radar because in most of such loot cases, criminals were riding bikes.