Calcutta, April 29: He is in desperate need of money for the treatment of his ailing wife. But when Rana Dutta found a fat purse lying in his taxi’s backseat, he decided to keep greed at bay.

Dutta, 31, returned around Rs 4 lakh ? Rs 87,000 in cash and gold jewellery worth Rs 3.4 lakh ? to an executive magistrate from Dhubri in Assam, who had left behind his wife’s purse in the taxi last night.

This morning, about 10 hours after Oheduzzaman and his wife had got off his taxi, Dutta called up the magistrate on his mobile phone and deposited the cash and jewellery at Maheshtala police station.

Officers said the taxi driver asked for nothing in return. A handshake was reward enough for the man who has been putting in extra hours behind the wheel for the last two-and-a-half months ever since his wife started suffering from a kidney ailment.

A grateful Oheduzzaman, however, handed him Rs 10,000.

Around 8.30 last night, Oheduzzaman and his wife alighted the taxi at BB Ganguly Street. The couple paid the bill but forgot to take the purse. They realised their slip while making a payment at a jewellery shop.

“After enquiring with a few taxi drivers waiting outside the shop, the two lodged a complaint with us,” said a senior officer of Muchipara police station.

Muchipara police immediately informed the Lalbazar police control and traffic control.

Dutta, in the meantime, reached home at Beledanaga Singhipara, a downtown locality bordering Sarsuna and Maheshtala in south Calcutta. He noticed the purse while checking his taxi before calling it a day. Inside the purse, he found a small card that had Oheduzzaman’s mobile number.

“This morning, Rana turned up and told us everything. Oheduzzaman came around 10.30 am and collected the purse. It was really a great show of honesty from Rana. More so because he is in dire need of money,” said Chandrakanta Das Mahapatra, the inspector-in-charge of Maheshtala police station.