A 50-year-old woman from Gurgaon registered a complaint with the police on Saturday claiming her braid was "mysteriously" chopped off in the Ashok Vihar Phase 3 area on Friday night. At least 15 similar incidents were reported earlier in the Mewat region.
Looks like a hair-chopping gang has struck Gurgaon now! This is the first such incident that has been reported from the city.
Sunita Devi, the woman whose hair was chopped off, was alone at her house when the incident happened.
"While I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, I saw a thin man in a red and yellow outfit on the main entrance of my house. When I went to enquire, I saw he was carrying a trident. I told him to go away and disappeared ... when I closed the gate, he mysteriously reappeared," she told PTI.
Devi added that she fell unconscious before she could understand what was going on. "When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on the floor and my braid was chopped off," she said. Devi also clarified that her house was not ransacked and she did not suffer any external wounds.
Devi was admitted to a private hospital following the attack and was discharged on Saturday evening.
"No concrete proof found yet," says the police
"The Gurgaon police are trying their best to find out concrete proof," Gurgaon Police PRO Ravinder Kumar was quoted by India Today as saying.
Kumar said the attacker has not been identified yet and that night patrolling in the area has been stepped up.
"The victim's husband has made a complaint at Sector 5 police station. We have made DD (daily diary) entry to mark it for investigating the matter as prima facie there is no such criminal part in it. We have enhanced the night patrolling in the area," Kumar told PTI adding that the matter was quite complicated and sensitive.
"We are examining the CCTV footage of leading areas, streets and roads to get clue as no one, including the victims, has concrete evidence about such incidents which have been reported in Mewat region also in the last two weeks," Kumar said.
"In all cases, the victims are getting unconscious at the time of chopping hair and all of them are claiming phantasm," he added.
Men on patrol duty at night in Mewat
The situation in Mewat is so serious that the male members of the village have been patrolling at night.
"We have received complaints of two-three such incidents in Ferozpur Jhirka's Santhwari and Satras villages, Malhaka village, Punahana, Dallawas, Jharpuri, Hamka, Padhen, Shikarpur and Mohammadpur Aheer, where villagers have said braids of women being chopped off mysteriously," Yaad Ram, deputy superintendent of police Ferojpur, Jhirka, was quoted by India Today as saying.
He added: "They said a cat-like animal mysteriously appears and makes women unconscious. It chops off their braids and disappears in seconds. They also claimed a ghost is behind it."
DSP Ram further added the stories of a ghost doing this was found to be a rumour but such incidents have been happening quite a lot.
"We suspect, a gang of some anti-social elements behind such incidents to terrify villagers. No FIR has however been registered so far," the DSP said.
