Police spent 24 hours feeding a thief 96 bananas to retrieve the gold chain he stole and swallowed.

Damu Gupta, 28, had snatched the necklace from a doctor minutes into a long-distance train journey from Mumbai to Gondia, central India, last Saturday.

But he when Dr Sheetal Kamble started screaming, and passengers ran to her rescue, Gupta put the 11g piece of jewellery in his mouth. Police arrested him in Kalyan, the second stop, and spent days conducting scans and X-rays to find it.

Finally, on Christmas Day, an ultrasound showed the chain to be in his stomach. Gupta vehemently claimed he was innocent and passengers too could not find any chain on him.

'But a traveler said he had noticed Gupta swallowing something and assumed it must have been the chain,' police said.

Sampat Nirmal, senior inspector, told Time Of India: 'We initially conducted a regular X-ray but it didn't detect anything.'So on Wednesday, we conducted an ultrasound which revealed the chain in Gupta's abdomen.'

From Wednesday afternoon the accused was fed bananas, a natural laxative, by a doctor.

Finally, on Thursday afternoon, it was recovered.

Police said Gupta has since confessed he committed similar offences in his village in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, for which he has served jail terms.

Gupta claimed he was scared of being beaten up by the mob of passengers so he swallowed the chain.

Police are now working to deliver the chain to Dr Kamble, who lives in Akola, near Gondia.