A woman has been arrested for stealing 61 silk sarees worth nearly Rs 91,000 from a saree store in the City Market area of Bengaluru, while the owner of the shop and his assistant have also been arrested for assaulting the woman.
The woman, identified as Hampamma, 55, who is from Andhra Pradesh, was accused on September 21 of stealing sarees from the Maya Silk Saree store by the owner, Umed Ram, 44, and his assistant, Mahendra S, 25. The shop owner and his assistant assaulted the woman subsequently in an act of moral policing, the police said.
“The complainant, the owner of a saree shop located within the limits of City Market Police Station, lodged a complaint at the City Market Police Station on 21/09/2025. In the complaint, it was stated that a woman was stealing a bundle of sarees from his shop. The shop owner caught her and handed her over to the City Market Police along with the stolen bundle of sarees,” the Bengaluru police said in an official statement on the incident.
“During the course of the investigation, the police interrogated the accused woman, who confessed to stealing the saree bundle. She was then produced in court and was remanded to judicial custody,” the police statement said.
“Further, at the time when the woman was caught stealing sarees, the shop owner assaulted her under the pretext of moral policing. An unknown person recorded a video of this assault and circulated it on social media. Based on this incident, a case was registered on 25/09/2025 at the City Market Police Station against the shop owner who assaulted the woman and another person,” the Bengaluru police statement further said.
“In this case, the accused persons, the shop owner and his aide, were arrested and produced before a court which remanded both accused to judicial custody,” the police said.
According to the police complaints in the two cases, the theft by the woman was initially spotted by the owner on the saree store’s CCTV footage for September 20. On September 21, when the shop owner and his assistant spotted the woman again near the store, they caught her and thrashed her.
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The police initiated a case against the shop owner after the Karnataka State Commission for Women wrote to the city police chief. The police said efforts were being made to trace the sarees alleged to have been sold by the woman after the theft on September 20.
The shop owner and his assistant have been booked for the assault of a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty and cause hurt. A case of theft has been registered against the woman.