MUMBAI: Six women lost their chains — and Mumbai Police a lot of its bluster — to a lone biker on Sunday afternoon.

The biker, riding a red Pulsar, escaped with chains worth more than Rs 1 lakh after robbing the six women — all walking along not-very-crowded streets in a two-kilometre stretch across Kandivli (W) and Borivli (W) — in a 45-minute span.

The biker was yet to be arrested more than three days after the sensational chain of crimes. What was more, in a total lack of confidence in the cops' ability to retrieve the lost jewellery, two of the six robbed women preferred not to lodge any complaint at all.

The first of the six women to be robbed was Madhuri Raut. She was opposite Shrinath Building near Charkop Market when the biker came up to her and fled with her Rs-15,000 gold chain before she could react.

Five minutes later (around 12.50 pm), and around 200 metres farther down the same road, nursing home staff Shobha Savne became the second victim. She was walking towards Kandivli railway station when the biker came and asked her the way to “Tulsi College''. “I told him that I had never heard of the college and started walking again. He followed me a few paces and then sped away. I never even realised that he had taken my Rs-14,000 mangalsutra till a passerby alerted me and I found that the chain was not there,'' Savne said.

A Shiv Sena function was on nearby and someone tried to follow the bike but failed to tail it after the Link Road crossing. Cops had come by then and Savne lodged a complaint after which she met the afternoon's third victim. “This woman told me she, too, had been robbed and I told her she should lodge a complaint. But she said that would not be any use,'' Save added.

Sujata Prabhu, walking along the road near Shivneri Society, was the fourth victim. She lost a gold chain worth Rs 15,000 but had more faith in cops; she lodged a complaint.

But she met another woman — the day's fifth victim — who preferred not to. “I was in the police vehicle, going to the Borivli police station, when we met another girl — probably a college-goer — near the Ganesh temple. She said a biker had snatched her chain but told us she did not have time to lodge a complaint,'' Prabhu said.

Mrinal Mhatre, walking along Link Road around 1.30 pm, was the biker's last — and most expensive — catch. “I was walking with a friend and the first time I realised something had happened was when I saw my mangalsutra in the biker's hand. It cost Rs 58,000,'' she told TOI on Wednesday.

Borivli police officials said they would have gone in for a nakabandi in the area had they been alerted as soon as the crimes occurred. Additional commissioner of police (north) Suresh Khopde said he had asked officers to go through crime records, study similar offences and check what those offenders were doing now.