Three men, who had dressed as transgenders, have been arrested for allegedly robbing a Mumbai woman by scaring her and saying her newborn child is facing health issues, a police official said on Monday.
According to the MIDC police station official, the trio, nabbed on Sunday, has been identified as Bhanudas Sawant (29), Mahendra Nagnath (38) and Prakash Shinde (24), all residents of Buldhana district in eastern Maharashtra.
The accused managed to get the home address of the woman (28) who had recently given birth to a baby boy. They went to the woman’s house on July 6 and told her the baby was facing health issues and that his health may deteriorate, he said.
The trio advised the woman to perform some rituals and asked her to tie her gold ornaments in a turmeric-laced paper so that nothing bad would happen to the child, the official said.
They then decamped with the gold ornaments, he said, adding the woman’s husband later lodged a police complaint.
Based on the complaint, the police first searched for the trio at Kalwa in the adjoining Thane district, but failed to find them.
The three were finally arrested in Buldhana, around 500 km from Mumbai, and booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including robbery, the official said.
The police suspect the trio had received information about the newborn from the maternity home where the woman was admitted for delivery.
