india

Updated: Aug 22, 2019 08:56 IST

Police in Rajasthan’s Bikaner went bananas to recover a gold chain from a snatcher. Two men had snatched the chain from a woman in the crowded Gangashahar locality on Tuesday.

“We received information about two motorcycle-borne youths snatching a gold chain from a woman, who was shopping in Gangashahar area on Tuesday evening. When she raised an alarm, residents called the police,” Gangashahar police station in-charge Subhash Bijarania said.

The police nabbed the men within a few hours after the ornament was snatched. The man, who was identified as the snatcher on the basis of CCTV footage, swallowed the chain in a bid to mislead the police.

“We took him to PBM Hospital where X-rays showed pieces of gold chain lodged in his gut. Doctors advised us to put him on a course of potassium-rich food and feed him bananas and papaya instead of endoscopic surgery,” the SHO said.

More than a dozen bananas and two papayas were ordered for a man held for snatching gold chain. Police then fed him the bananas and papayas and waited for him to defecate to recover the chain.

‘Operation Banana’ concluded successfully on Wednesday morning, said the police displaying the confiscated jewellery. Bijarania said they went by the doctor’s advice to achieve the unpleasant task for an extremely safe recovery of the chain.

Police also have arrested his accomplice and are interrogating both the men to find out if they were involved in other snatching cases.

Police in Mumbai were faced with a similar problem in 2016 and they had force-fed the snatcher four dozen bananas to recover the stolen gold chain.

And, in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur police did not go bananas to retrieve the stolen good swallowed by a snatcher and opted for the surgical path to retrieve a traditional gold chain from his stomach.