In a shocking incident, a nine sovereign chain was snatched from a lady in Coimbatore on late Sunday night. The chain was snatched from Maheshwari, the wife of the District Munsif of Sulur, K.Selvapandi.

The incident happened on Sunday when the Munsif and his wife were returning home on their two-wheeler after visiting a temple. As they were nearing Periya kulam, near Sulur, two unidentified people on another two-wheeler behind them snatched the chain from the wife’s neck and sped away.

The Sulur police are investigating the case.

This incident comes on the heels of a spike in the crime rate in and around Sulur. On March 6, miscreants broke into a hardware shop in Sulur and got away with Rs.2.5 lakhs cash. March 19 saw two separate chain-snatching incidents in Sulur alone.

In May, thieves broke into four mobile phone shops and stole around 40 expensive phones. Later in the same month, a private college principal’s house was burgled by unidentified persons. They fled with gold ornaments worth Rs.5 lakh.

Cases have been registered in all the above incidents and are in different stages of investigation. A chain-snatcher was also arrested by the Sulur police, but these incidents keep happening.  

On June 6, the residents, the party members from the ruling and the opposition parties in Sulur started a signature campaign to sensitise people on the rising crime rate in the locality. The residents also alleged that the area has seen a spike in the number of incidents from chain snatching to burglary.