19 years after mother’s death, siblings receive gold earring snatched from her on Mumbai train in 1992

After all these years, while Kadam did not remember the shape or size of the stolen ornament, he said Vijayshree was sad for days after the incident. “She broke down while narrating the incident once she reached home, even as her ear continued to bleed. She had saved every penny to buy those earrings for herself back in those days,” Kadam recounted.

Kadam and his sister were brought up by their mother alone after their father died in a train accident in 1978, a little before Kadam was born. After Vijayshree’s death in 2001, Kadam shifted to Kharghar, while his sister lives with her husband in Dombivali. On Friday, the two siblings came to the Kurla GRP together to collect the earring. “We will just keep the earring as our mother’s memory and all the hardships she had faced for us,” Kadam said.

Kadam said he had all but forgotten about the incident, when two weeks ago he got a call from Kurla GRP asking him to come to the police station to collect the ornament. He was among the three people who were returned their belongings.

Lucy Pi, once a resident of Kurla who has now moved to Goa, was also handed over her gold chain which was stolen in 1998. Another, Sulgana Panigrahi, who was on a visit to the city from Kolkata, was handed over Rs 1,800 cheque for the money she had lost when her wallet was stolen in 2014.

All the three persons were traced by Chaitali Chavan of Kurla GRP, who made multiple visits to the addresses mentioned in the FIRs to get any clue of the victims.

“It was heart-warming to see their happiness at getting their belongings back after all these years,” M Inamdar, senior police inspector of Kurla GRP said.

Since January 2019, Kurla GRP has returned valuables stolen in 527 cases, amounting to 43.23 lakh. In cases where the complainants could not be traced, the valuables or cash has been deposited with the Reserve Bank of India.