GURGAON: Haji Akhtar Khan preferred honesty over windfall gains. The Sharma family received a Diwali gift six months late.Khan, a scrap dealer in Faridabad, returned to the family nearly 100 grams of gold jewelery worth around Rs 15 lakh that had been mistakenly sold along with household garbage before Diwali.The family of Ashok Sharma, an electrician, realized that the ornaments had gone missing while preparing for Lakshmi Puja in October last year. The jewellery, mostly bracelets and earrings, were kept in a small box and placed inside a bag at home before the family left for the Kumbh Mela in January. This was an attempt to keep valuables safe from theft. However, during routine cleaning before Diwali, the bag was accidentally disposed of and sold as scrap.The garbage went to the khan (60).
From scrap to rightful owner
Khan has been running a scrap business since 1992 on the Agra Canal route.Suspecting that the child had been inadvertently thrown out with the bathwater, Sharma visited Khan two or three times over the following months to inquire if he had found anything but returned empty-handed.Recalling what happened, Khan said that Sharma came to his shop two months before Diwali to sell some scrap. “He came in his own car while cleaning the house and sold the junk,” Khan said.
When the family returned about two months later, Khan said he had not stored the old CCTV footage from his store. He added: “If they had approached us within 20 to 30 days of the scrap sale, we could have checked the cameras. By the time they approached us, we would have deleted the footage.”The turning point came earlier this week when Khan, while sifting through scraps in his shop, noticed a plastic container. “Someone probably kept it there thinking it was copper.
“But I had my doubts,” he said.Khan had the package inspected by a jeweler. “He confirmed that it was gold – 22 carats – about 100 grams. I was sure that it belonged to Sharma ji and no one else. So, it had to be returned. We earn money through hard work and cannot keep someone else’s property. My family also agreed with me,” he said. The scrap dealer took the jewelry to the police station to ensure it was delivered properly.
