A thief who stole a NT$700,000 violin from a poor graduate student returned it to the anxious owner after his plea and pressure from peers, local media reported on Friday.
The reports said the graduate student, surnamed Huang (黃), of Soochow University in Taipei, was only able to purchase the violin after working part-time for more than six years. Coming from a single-parent family, he said his mother was the main income earner.
He stored the violin in a musical instrument storage room on April 22 to avoid carrying it in a downpour, but when he returned the next day, the violin and bow were missing from the case.
Huang said he could not eat or sleep after the incident and he posted a message about his “held-up violin” on the Internet three days later, imploring the thief to return the violin and saying he would not pursue the person if it were returned. His classmates also offered to help, with more than 300 leaving him messages. Huang also contacted violin importers to deter the thief from selling it.
The school looked into the matter, viewing footage from a surveillance camera in which officers noticed a suspicious female student.
The school then issued an appeal to graduate students in the music department, asking that “if anybody has seen or retrieved the violin to return it to its owner as quickly as possible.”
Huang received a call on his cellphone on April 30 in which the caller told him the violin was at the printing shop at the entrance of the school campus and then abruptly hung up.
Huang was overjoyed to get his violin back, saying that he would not pursue the person who stole it.
Although Huang will not pursue the case, Yen Nai-wei (顏迺偉), deputy chief prosecutor of the Shihlin District Public Prosecutors’ Office, said burglary was a prosecutable offense, and that the office would consider whether to handle the case after reviewing it.
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