Sacked manager hid underneath burqa to abandon stolen gold at HDFC bank in Chennai

CHENNAI: The burqa clad woman who left behind a jewellery bag in HDFC bank's Velachery branch on December 5 turned out to be a former manager (Vault in-charge) at the branch. She was arrested by the Chennai Police last month for stealing jewels from a NRI customer's locker.

Based on a complaint by bank authorities, police traced the woman to a hostel in Velachery and found that the woman who abandoned the jewellery by hiding underneath a burqa was, in fact, the manager Padmapriya (37), who was out on conditional bail.

Padmapriya was arrested by the EDF wing of the Central Crime Branch based on a complaint by an NRI, Swaroopa Rani Sivakumar, who had a locker at HDFC’s Velachery branch and had authorised her mother in Chennai to access it. During a routine check, the family found gold jewellery weighing 238 grams missing from the locker.

Based on a complaint filed by her brother, Senthilkumar, the case was registered on November 12. During the probe, the special team identified the bank's grade-II manager and locker vault in-charge Padmapriya as the suspect and arrested her.

Police said the manager had opened the locker without authorisation, removed the jewellery, sold it to a private pawn shop in Velachery for Rs 21 lakh and hid the cash inside the bank’s premises. The CCB recovered Rs 20.6 lakh and 188 grams of melted gold.

Meanwhile, in a latest development, Padmapriya told investigators that she also took jewellery from another senior citizen's locker and fearing arrest in that case, abandoned the jewellery at the bank itself, police sources said. The gold recovered in the recent instance was about 1 kg of gold bar, a chain and a necklace weighing 124.80 gram, and two bangles weighing 31.80 gram.

The police have reached out to the senior citizen to inquire about the valuables in her locker. Padmapriya gave a written assurance that she would appear for future questioning as required by police officials.