BOMBAY (MUMBAI) -Police in Maharashtra have ‘successfully deployed’ an unusual technique to retrieve a gold chain that a thief had swallowed while officers were in hot pursuit – they force-fed him more than 40 bananas.

A man snatched a chain off a woman’s neck in a street in Bombay. When caught, the man denied snatching the chain. He had swallowed it in a desperate bid to conceal his crime, but the cops took him to a hospital, and the hospital X-rays suggested otherwise.

So the Bombay (Mumbai) Police administered an enema which failed to yield the desired result.

Doctors said an operation would be the best way forward, but police officers decided it would be too expensive and opted instead for the bananas.

“He was fed more than 40 bananas throughout the day,” Mumbai police Senior Inspector Shankar Dhanavade claimed. “Eventually the chain was found. We made him wash and disinfect it,” the policeman added.

The 25-year-old man appeared in court on Friday and is in police custody, said Dhanavade.

According to reports, it was not the first time Mumbai police used bananas in order to recover an ingested item.

In July last year a chain was retrieved after another thief was made to eat two dozen bananas and drink several litres of milk laced with laxatives, the Hindustan Times reported.

Months earlier in April, a thief was fed five dozen bananas after swallowing a gold chain with a large pendant.

The thief successfully excreted the loot. But the disgusted victim refused to touch the recovered chain and instead took it to a jeweller in a plastic bag, the newspaper said.

  crime