New Delhi
A Muslim scrap dealer’s act of returning jewelry worth Rs 4 lakh to its rightful Hindu owner in a Madhya Pradesh village is winning him accolades on social media and he was also felicitated by the local MLA for his honesty.
A week ago, Kaley Khan, 40, had routinely picked discarded plastics, broken steel dishes, some paper, and other stuff from the house of Sandeep of village Baroda in Ratlam district for Rs 850. He loaded all the house discards in a mini-van and moved to the next village.
At the end of the day as he was heading home, his eyes fell on an almost new stainless-steel layered Tiffin box and he suddenly thought he could keep it for use at home while dumping other stuff for recycling.
Out of sheer curiosity, he opened the top box and to his surprise, there were pieces of gold and silver jewelry inside.“I opened the next box and found Rs 50,000 and in the next 25,000. The cost of the jewelry was around Rs four lakh,’ he told the media person. Khan became restless. “I couldn’t eat and sleep that night. I kept thinking about the person and his state of mind after realizing his loss,” said Kaley Khan, who lives with his family in village Jaora in Ratlam.
Though he lives in a rented one-room house with his family and pays Rs 1,000 rent, he wanted to hand over the valuables and cash to its rightful owner at the earliest. He said he could empathize with the loss of the owner. "I was thinking like as I do, he also must have worked so hard to buy all this."
“I was thinking with how much difficulty, he must have earned all this. Maybe the jewelry was kept aside for his daughter’s wedding. He must be felling so terrible.” Khan said he would have gone to him that night but since he had no conveyance, he spent the night at home awake in tension and anxiety.
Initially, he couldn’t even recall where he had picked the Tiffin box. However, he soon worked it out and the next day, he went to Sandeep’s house and handed him over the valuables.
The owners hadn’t even realized the loss since keeping jewelry safe at an unlikely place was done by one member without telling others.
“The owners were so happy and emotional to see me and they profusely thanked and blessed me,” he said.
As Kaley Khan’s act of honesty spread through the word of mouth, the local MLA Dr. Rajendra Pandey d honoured him at a small function. Pandey praised Kaley Khan for his honesty.
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