Kattakkada: In a strange incident, an unidentified woman entered a school during working hours and asked a girl student of Class 3 to hand over her gold earrings, which the child did. The woman then walked away unchecked with the jewellery.
The episode was reported from Poovachal upper primary school. Earlier in the day, a similar theft was attempted at Veeranakavu school five km away, but it failed.
Around 10.30 am on Tuesday, the suspect woman reached the Poovachal school and approached the student, who had come out of her classroom during the interval, saying that she had been sent by the child’s mother. The woman then told the student that her mother was waiting at a finance firm nearby and had sent the woman to collect the child’s gold earrings to pledge it.
Even though the student did not know the woman, she handed over the earrings. The fraud came to light later when the child reached home after school and related the incident to her parents.
No teacher in the school too was aware of the theft. A complaint was submitted by the parents of the child to the school authorities, who forwarded it to the Kattakkada police station. The police inspected visuals from the closed circuit television camera installed in the school and found an unidentified woman wearing a red sari entering the compound at 10.36 am and leaving by 11.15 am.
The school has high periphery wall and several security personnel. That the stranger could enter the premises unhindered and interact with the student has the parents worried. Poovachal UP school is located right beside the main road.
Meanwhile, the similar incident was reported from Veeranakavu school around 9 am. Here, a stranger tried to rob earrings from a student outside the school compound, but when the child raised an alarm, the miscreant escaped from the scene. It is believed that the same person reached Poovachal school later.
