Rajkot: The Rajkot crime branch has arrested Saidabibi alias Shahidabanu alias Salma Firozkhan Pathan (36) who used to strip elderly women of their jewellery by luring them with promises of widow pension or to get the payout increased in case they were already receiving it.

A police complaint had been registered at the city’s ‘A’ Division police station according to which a woman had taken an elderly woman to the civil hospital promising her that she would get widow pension but had instead fled after stripping the elderly woman of the gold jewellery she was wearing. The crime branch had begun scanning CCTV footage of the spot where the offence was committed.

However, PSI KD Patel of the crime branch was aware of a woman being arrested for a similar crime in the Gir-Somnath district about a year ago. The PSI requested for a photograph of the woman from the Gir-Somnath police, which closely matched the image of Saidabibi captured by the CCTV camera confirming that she was responsible for the crime at the civil hospital. The crime branch found out her mobile details using a CDR and finally succeeded in catching her.

According to her confession to the police, Saidabibi has been perpetrating such crimes since 2014. She has about 24 offences registered in her name in various cities of Gujarat. She has also been sent to jail under PASA twice.

During interrogation, she also confessed to stripping another elderly woman of her gold jewellery in Mehsana recently. The gold bangles that Saidabibi had stripped off the elderly woman at the civil hospital have been recovered by the police from her.

Saidabibi would lure the elderly women to a pre-decided spot on the promise of a widow pension and would ask them to pose for a photograph. She would ask the elderly women to remove their gold jewellery before posing for the photograph arguing that their pension would be rejected if the gold jewellery was visible in their photos.

The elderly women would remove the gold jewellery and hand it over to Saidabibi, who would run away with it from the spot. Saidabibi is a native of Dagjipura village in Anand district. DeshGujarat.