Jaipur: In a shocking lapse of city policing, an unidentified man brazenly stormed into a house in upscale Sethi Colony Wednesday afternoon and violently snatched a gold chain from a 70-year-old woman in broad daylight.The victim, Shakuntala Devi, was drying clothes on her porch around 2pm when the intruder barged in, grabbed the chain around her neck, and engaged in a violent scuffle that flung her on the floor. The chain snapped in two, with the assailant fleeing with one half, leaving the other dangling from the stunned woman’s clenched hand.The incident was captured on the home’s CCTV camera, now a crucial piece of evidence for Transport Nagar police to crack the case.SHO Arun Kumar said the attacker, believed to be between 20 and 25 years old, wore a helmet but part of his face is visible in the footage. “We have got a partial face capture and a strong lead. Checkpoints have been set up, and more footage is being scanned,” he said. Police suspect the assailant to be the same man behind another chain-snatching incident reported recently in another part of the city.This marks the second major chain-snatching crime this week in Jaipur. On Monday, a woman was robbed outside the Women’s Police Station in Mansarovar. Despite her screams and chasing, no help came her way. Investigators are probing whether both incidents are linked.The more worrying trend, though, is that Jaipur isn’t alone in witnessing such frequent chain-snatching incidents. Around midnight Monday, five masked men attacked 75-year-old Amarti Devi in Bagdi village of Sojat city in Pali. They barged into her house through an unlocked door, tried to choke her with a scarf, and attempted to rip off her jewellery. She resisted fiercely before the attackers fled with part of her ornaments. The entire incident was caught on CCTV.In another case Tuesday, two armed, masked men entered a house in Pooja Colony, Sriganganagar, held a woman at gunpoint, snatched her gold chain, and fled on a motorbike.These four incidents in four days have raised alarm over women’s safety and exposed glaring lapses in police patrolling in residential areas. Investigations are underway in all cases.
