vijeta, whose fear is that her sister was killed for her jewellery just as she was about to enter a bank, is baffled that mumbai police have not been able to gather any information on her whereabouts.

crazed with worry vijeta says: "what has happened to my sister? we don't know! she's happily married and she is the prettiest among us sisters. she's two years older than me. unlike sulakshana didi and me, she never wanted to be part of the cinema industry. she's happy being a housewife. the police seem clueless. for 13 days i've been travelling back and forth from my home to the police station to my sister's place in vashi. so far we've hit only a dead end. my sister was so happy. her husband was a commissioner in the excise department and she had two lovely children whom she was extremely fond of."

then vijeta corrected herself: "why am i speaking of her in the past tense? we're all praying she would return. sandhya's one weakness is jewellery. she is too tooooo attached to jewellery and wears tonnes of it. she has lots of her husband's ancestral ornaments and she loves to flash them around. i always warn her not to travel with so much jewellery. whenever she comes home i make her take off all the jewellery and tie it up in a handkerchief, put it her purse before she travels back home to vashi."

vijeta's other sister sulakshana stays with vijeyta and aadesh. she has still to be told of the trauma the family faces, as she is considered too weak to handle such news.

vijeta said: "if sulakshana didi comes to know that our sister is missing, she wouldn't be able to take it. she wouldn't be able to bear the shock."

"we're hoping the criminals would take the jewellery and release my sister," vijeta says.