Tumakuru (Karnataka)

Anunusual “thief”, a rat was caught on CCTV carrying away gold rings and chains from a jewellery shop in this district, with the missing ornaments eventually recovered from its “hideout”, the shop owner said on Friday.

The incident that occurred earlier this week came to light after staff at the said shop found that 10 rings and two chains were missing during a routine stock count, they said.

According to the shop owner Vishwas, the staff initially suspected theft and thoroughly examined the CCTV footage but found nothing unusual.

“Everyone started wondering whether a customer had taken them, but there was no evidence of that either. We couldn’t understand how this had happened,” he said.

They later noticed that several price tags, which carry the weight details of the ornaments, were also missing. “We thought that if it was a thief, they wouldn’t take the tags; they would only take the jewellery.

So we decided to search again,” he said.

Upon reviewing the previous night’s CCTV footage, the staff spotted a rat carrying away a ring at around 4.30 am. “That’s when we realised it was the rat’s doing. It had made a hole in one place and created a path from there to another area. Along that route, we found the chains and rings that had fallen. We recovered all the missing jewellery from that area,” he added.