In just the last one week, four cases of onion theft have been reported in Gadag, Gajendragad and Ron taluks in the district, sending farmers and the local police into a tizzy.
GADAG: With the prices of onions breaching the Rs 100 mark in many places, it is no surprise that the daily use commodity has become a ‘prized possession’.
Numerous memes and videos have also been doing the rounds on social media platforms. But what comes as a shocker is that onions have now become the latest target of thieves who are carting them away by quintals from farms.
In just the last one week, four cases of onion theft have been reported in Gadag, Gajendragad and Ron taluks in the district, sending farmers and the local police into a tizzy. Farmers, who had been badly hit by the recent floods, were hoping to recoup their losses with onion prices at a high now.
Last weekend, about 40 bags of onions were stolen from the fields of Kalkayya Prabhuswamimutt, a farmer from Naregal town, in the early hours. “We never imagined that onions would be stolen from our fields. I don’t know how they transported all the bags when people were sleeping in the field. We lost 25 bags of chilli too the same night. We have lodged a complaint at the local police station,” he said.
A similar case was reported on the outskirts of Gajendragad on Thursday night where thieves made away with onions from a field there too.
Farmer Muttappa Yavagal had planned to harvest the onions the next morning. But he was aghast when he woke and found that onions worth around Rs 80,000 had been stolen from his field.Two cases of onion theft have also been reported in Gadag taluk.
In one of the incidents, thieves made away with onion bags which were kept on the roadside for drying by farmers.Speaking to The New Indian Express, Gadag Superintendent of Police Srinath Joshi said, “We have informed the local police stations to be vigilant in market areas and also near fields where onions
are stocked in large quantities. The police are also checking each and every vehicle carrying onions and verifying the documents”.
