Bengaluru: Bangla woman strip searched, robbed of cash by social activist
Bengaluru: A 32-year-old Bangladeshi woman was thrashed, strip searched and robbed of her money by a city-based woman, who claimed to be a social activist, along with two other female security guards of a renowned supermarket in Bommasandra last Monday. The incident happened at D-Mart supermarket where the victim, Rashida Begum, had gone to shop for few items. A pair of slippers was unbilled and she was caught for shoplifting by the security guards at the door.
“Rashida, who did not know how to read, assumed that the bill of Rs 800 included everything she had purchased. She had bought a shirt, trousers and a spoon for her husband, Mohammad Mojibor Mattabur, who is currently convalescing after a heart surgery in Narayana Health Hospital,” said Rajesh Kumar Yadav, an assistant manager at the hospital.
“Rashida was told that she was being taken to a manager’s cabin, but instead she was escorted by three women, including two security staffers of D-Mart, to the godown and thrashed mercilessly, humiliated and strip searched. The other lady, identified as Manjula, who claimed to be a social activist, while searching the victim found Rs 65,000 in Indian currency and Rs 5,000 in Bangladeshi currency on her and snatched it away,” said Rajesh. This money the victim carried was after she sold some of the property back in Bangladesh for her husband’s surgery, he added.
They robbed and humiliated the victim, who was then threatened by the trio that if she said anything about this incident to anybody, a theft complaint would be lodged against her with the police.
As Rashida was in a foreign land and was made to believe that knowingly or unknowingly she had committed a mistake, she did not have the courage to approach the police. After all this was over, she was asked to leave the supermarket. Some Bengali speaking youths, who understood her plight, took her to Narayana Health Hospital.
Rashida narrated her ordeal to Rajesh Yadav, who understood and spoke Bengali, and then the victim gathered courage to approach the police. Rashida along with Rajesh Yadav went to the Hebbagodi police on Thursday and lodged a complaint against Manjula and the two other guards of D-Mart supermarket.
The police retrieved the CCTV footage from the supermarket and confirmed about the incident. “Manjula was arrested while two other D-Mart security staffers who were not named in the FIR, were detained and were being questioned on their involvement,” said an investigating official. The D-Mart management was unavailable for their comment.
Husband had undergone valve replacement surgery
Rashida Begum and her ailing husband Mohammed Mojibor Mattabur left Bangladesh and reached Kolkata on April 26. The double valve replacement surgery for Mohammed would have cost Rs 4 lakh in Bangladesh. As the family was not financially well off they opted to come down to Bengaluru to get the surgery done at Narayana Health.
According to a Narayana Health manager, the couple had met Dr Devi Shetty, who offered to help them with the surgery. Mattabur was admitted on May 16 and the surgery was conducted successfully on May 19 and Mattabur was discharged on May 23.
As there was one-week period for observation of pro-thrombin time post surgery, and the couple did not have place to stay in Bengaluru, the hospital had provided them a cabin at the inpatient waiting room. However, when Rashida went to a city supermarket to buy some clothes for her husband and slippers for herself, she had to go undergo a horrendous ordeal.
‘They did not try to understand what I was saying’
“I pleaded to them that I am not a thief. I even showed my passport and said I had come to the city for my husband’s heart surgery, but the three women at the supermarket did not heed to my pleas. It was a horrendous ordeal as they would not try to understand what I am saying and I could not understand what they were saying,” said Rashida. “The slippers cost was between Rs 100 and 200,” she recalled.
