No helmet, mask or burqa entry ; Gujarat jewellers enforce IBJA safety rules

Ahmedabad | Gujarat — If you are wearing a helmet or burqa while visiting a jewellery shop in Gujarat, you won’t be able to get an entry. Amid the soaring prices of gold and silver, following incidents of masked thieves and robbers entering diamond and jewellery shops in the country and looting lakhs of rupees, the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA) has issued guidelines for jewellery shop owners and instructed them not to allow any customer to enter the jewellery shop with any kind of face covering or not to sell goods. 

Apart from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, this instruction has been implemented in many states of North India. In Surat and across Gujarat, the jewellery showrooms and small retailers in the cities have strictly implemented the rule announced by the IBJA. 

All India Bullion and Jewellers Association has issued an advisory to its member jewellers, jewellery shop owners, jewellery showroom owners. This advisory states that any customer wearing a burqa, veil, hijab, niqab, mask, othani or helmet or any other item that is visible on the face is prohibited from entering the shop, showroom. 

The jewellery store owners have been urged to put up notices on the entry gates of their premises to prevent the customers with their faces covered. 

All India Bullion and Jewellers (IBJA) leader Nainesh Pachigar of Surat said that currently the price of gold has reached around Rs. 1.35 lakh per 10 grams and the price of silver has reached around Rs. 2.5 lakh per kg. During Navratri to Diwali and observing the incidents that have already happened, it has been found that in cases of robbery in jewellery shops across the country, people who came in the guise of customers kept their faces covered in a way that could not be seen. Due to this, their faces could not be identified even though there were CCTV cameras while committing the theft or robbery. Hence, it has become necessary to issue such guidelines.

On the other hand, Pratap Jirawala, President of Surat Jewellery Association, said that we already have a system in place where if any customer comes wearing a mask or veil or if their face is covered, they are requested to remove the make-up or makeup from their face at the first counter and most of the customers agree to it.