Forget gold and jewellery, thieves now steal onions

With onion prices touching the sky, there are peculiar incidents of onion theft coming in from across Gujarat. At least three incidents have come to light from Bhavnagar, Rajkot and Surat where thieves have stolen onions from local markets or from godowns. Interestingly, even the sacks of onion stolen amount in Lakhs!

Sacks left in the yard overnight to be shipped out the next day

There are at least two incidents from Bhavnagar have come to light where 14 sacks (each sack contained 50kg) of onions have been stolen from the sellers from the Bhavnagar Marketing Yard. There was at least 750 kg of onion that was in sacks in the yard. Apparently, the sack had been left there overnight after the seller had made a deal with the buyer. The sacks were left in the yard overnight to be shipped out on the next day. After this incident, even the police said there was little that could be done without the police complaint.

A meeting to ensure CCTV installation was done at the earliest

For this purpose on Thursday late night, there was an emergency meeting organised with the sellers who gathered to talk about the security measures that could be taken to make sure that there were no more incidents like this with other sellers. There was a meeting to ensure the installation CCTV was done at the earliest since there are no leads about who must’ve stolen the sacks of onion which was priced at Rs 1 lakh. The local yard authorities claimed that there might have also been a mistake by labourers in misplacing the sacks while loading and unloading the sacks of onions.

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Sellers want local authorities to increase security

In another incident from Bhavnagar, there were 14 sacks worth Rs 45,000 onions stolen from another local market yard. There were several protests that broke out in the yard as well. The sellers want the local authorities to increase security in the yard since several incidents of onion theft have come to light. After the incidents came to light, the sellers also demanded that the farmers need to be given more security since they bring the produce which is mostly targeted to be stolen. There have been several other incidents of onion theft reported from Rajkot and Surat as well.

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