Ludhiana: A regular business guest from Mumbai whose money had disappeared from a hotel near the clock tower here now claims to have caught the mystery thief on Instagram — a waiter whom he spotted flaunting bundles of Rs 500 currency notes along with a luxury mobile and expensive earphones in that post. The garment company marketing officer from Mumbai says Rs 97,000 cash was stolen from his suitcase at the Ludhiana hotel and the suspician had turned to a hotel employee who had disappeard the same day, but no one believed him. On Saturday, a case of theft was registered at the Division Number 1 police here against the hotel employee, who belongs to Uttarakhand.
Nitesh Kishor Bhanushali, the 41-year-old complainant from Mumbai, handles marketing for a garment manufacturer and the work has made him a frequent visitor to Ludhiana for more than a decade. The clock tower hotel is his regular place of stay in the city. Bhanushali said: “Being a 10-year-old customer, I have a relationship of trust with the hotel’s staff, so I always leave the doorkey at the reception for the housekeeping crew to clean my room.
On July 17 also, I did the same and went to Bathinda. By night, I returned, and when I opened my suitcase, I found the cash missing. The receptionist who answerd my call replied that a staffer was also missing since that morning.
The manager accused me of lying, since I had no proof that I had that much money. Even the police did not listen to me. Meanwhile, another hotel staffer showed me the Instagram profile of the missing suspect.
” Bhanushali sent the link to police. The complainant also claimed that the accused employee had started working at the hotel only a few weeks ago and the hotel owner had hired him without police verification. For proof of identity, they only had a copy of his Aadhaar card.
ASI Sukhwinder Singh from Division Number 1 police station said that police had lodged an FIR) under section 305 (theft) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against the accused hotel employee..
