Mandsaur: What first looked like a jewellery theft at a hospital in Madhya Pradesh turned out to be something far more unusual. CCTV footage revealed that a dog had picked up the bag containing jewellery worth around rs 4 lakh and carried it away.
The incident took place at Mandsaur District Hospital, where a woman identified as Latabai Valmiki, from Kayampur, was staying with her son, who was undergoing treatment for an arm injury.
Latabai told police that her bag went missing sometime between 1 am and 6 am on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday. The bag contained gold and silver jewellery worth about rs 4 lakh, along with around rs 2,000 in cash.
Naturally, the disappearance caused panic. With valuables of such high value missing from inside a hospital, the matter was reported to the City Kotwali police, who began looking into the case.
The mystery, however, took an unexpected turn when police checked the hospital’s CCTV cameras.
The footage showed that at around 4 am, a dog entered the surgical ward. Instead of simply wandering around, the dog picked up Latabai’s bag in its mouth and walked away with it.
Police then followed the dog’s movements by checking CCTV cameras installed at different locations around the hospital. The search eventually led them to an open area within the hospital premises, where the missing bag was found.
The biggest relief came when police opened the bag. The jewellery and cash were reportedly still there.
The valuables were later handed back to Latabai after the necessary formalities were completed.
According to Kotwali police station in charge Pushpendra Singh Rathore, the bag also contained biscuits and other food items. Police suspect that the smell of the food may have attracted the dog, which picked up the entire bag without apparently showing any interest in the jewellery inside.
The jewellery reportedly included a silver waist belt, silver anklets, a gold mangalsutra, gold rings, earrings, a nose ring, silver toe rings and other ornaments.
While the incident ended happily for Latabai, it has also highlighted concerns about security at the hospital. The CCTV cameras played a key role in tracing the missing bag and clearing up what initially appeared to be a straightforward theft.
In the end, the case had an unlikely explanation the jewellery wasn’t stolen by a professional thief. A hungry dog simply picked up the wrong bag and accidentally walked away with valuables worth lakhs.