Used To Luxuries, Female Singer Turns Habitual Thief, Arrested

Mumbai: An orchestra Singer has chosen to steal to live a life of luxury. She was jailed a total of 11 times, including the latest arrest, for stealing expensive items from shopping malls, markets and beauty parlors.

According to police, Munmun Hussain alias Archana Barua alias Nikki, originally from Kolkata, West Bengal, lived in Hyderabad with her husband a few years ago. Nikki sang in an orchestra while her husband was in business.

However, when her husband’s business suffered losses, their family went into debt. With this they fled to Kolkata. Later, she divorced her husband. Accustomed to the luxuries in life and unable to find a job no matter how much she searched, she resorted to theft. She travelled various cities and stole expensive items from shopping malls, markets and beauty parlors.

She resorted to thefts in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Nikki was arrested several times by police in various cities, like in Hyderabad during 2008, Kolkata during 2009 and Bangalore between 2012 and 2019. Yet there was no change in her.

Even though Nikki has been known to be staying in Bangalore for the past few years, Mumbai police had kept her under surveillance since 2018. In April 2019, she stole a woman's bag from a shopping mall in the Lower Parel area of Mumbai, which contained gold worth Rs 13 lakh and a Rs 50,000 cash worth iPhone. The case was handed over to the Mumbai Crime Branch police on November 29, 2020. Cops arrested her on Tuesday.