A thief in India was force-fed more than 40 bananas by police in order to recover a stolen necklace that he had swallowed. The 25-year-old man had denied stealing the gold chain from a woman on the street in Mumbai, but X-rays showed that he had swallowed it to hide the evidence.
An enema was administered to try and retrieve the jewellery. This failed and officers agreed that an operation would be too expensive. The solution was to force feed him bananas.
“He was fed more than 40 bananas throughout the day. Eventually the chain was found. We made him wash and disinfect it,” said Mumbai police senior inspector Shankar Dhanavade. The suspect appeared in court on Friday.
Force feeding bananas to suspects has happened more than once before in Mumbai. In July last year, a gold chain was recovered after a thief was made to eat two dozen bananas and drink several litres of laxative-laced milk. Several months earlier, a thief was fed five dozen bananas after swallowing a gold chain with a large pendant.