An assistant professor at the University of Delhi, North Campus, alleged that her car was broken into on a busy road in North Campus, with thieves stealing her wallet and laptop that contained 6 years of her PhD research. The victim is a faculty member at Maitreyi College who is also pursuing a PhD at Delhi University and has shared details of the incident via Instagram, where she posts content under the handle ‘Parso Literature’.
‘I was numb': Professor recalls moment of realisation
The victim posted a reel on the April 7 on her Instagram handle, explaining the incident, and said that her husband and she went to the north campus of Delhi University for some research work. “I went to the north campus with my husband because I had some PhD-related work.”
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She further explains that after wrapping up the work, they decided to go to Kamla Nagar to give some clothes to the tailor for alteration. They parked their car in front of Croma on Bungalow Road, which happens to be a very busy road.
The tailor informed them that the alteration would take roughly about two hours. To kill time, they went to 'Uddupi', a nearby restaurant, to have some food and then to Tanishq in the Kamla Nagar market. She recalled, “Now if we had walked to Tanishq, we would have seen our car parked on the road. However, we wanted to relive our college days, so we took a rickshaw.”
After visiting Tanishq, when the couple returned to their car, they saw that the driver’s side of the window glass had been smashed. She further added in her Instagram reel, “We stood there, shocked and numb. A couple of people also came over to see what had happened, and they were shocked too.”
Six years of research gone in seconds
The assistant professor exclaimed with sorrow that the most stressful part was seeing that the thieves had stolen her laptop, which contained her six years of PhD work. She says, “Will my supervisor believe me?”
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Her laptop, along with her banking cards, was also stolen, as was the air purifier inside the car. The professor said that she and her husband called the police. In the next part of her video, she shared that after coming out of the police station, the couple went to the gas station for refuelling the car; and they saw that the location of her laptop was the same for an hour.
She shares further, “We went to the location and asked the neighbours about the location of the laptop." The neighbours informed the couple that some boys were living in the neighbourhood with criminal records.
She says further, “My husband, Prabhat, went to the terrace and saw that they were hiding the stolen laptop in someone else’s terrace. Seeing my husband coming from a distance, the thieves stormed inside their room. Prabhat allegedly saw the bag and took it from the terrace.
The couple say that they noticed that the important cards were still missing, so they filed a complaint with the police. The victim says on her Instagram reel that the thieves were very relaxed in front of the police, and suddenly, one of them hit himself with a stone, blaming the police for the injury.
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One of the Instagramer users said, "As a phd scholar myself I panicked when I heard your 6 years of phd work went with the laptop. I'm so glad you recovered the laptop and your work is safe with you. Rest everything feels secondary."
"Kudos to you and your husband. It takes a hell lot of courage to confront criminals, especially someone who was desperate enough to vandalise your car. And it is impressive that you solved the mystery yourself. You and your husband make a great team, just like sherlock holmes and dr watson," wrote another user.
