The Hindu : New Delhi News : Lakhs looted at gun-point

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 09, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Lakhs looted at gun-point

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 8 . Two persons, including a woman, were injured and cash and jewellery worth lakhs was looted in separate incidents in the Capital since the wee hours of Saturday.

Armed men at Kalyanpuri in East Delhi robbed two employees of a private firm of huge amount of cash today. The victims had withdrawn the money from a bank and were going to another bank when the incident occurred.

According to the police, two managers working with a manufacturing firm in Sector-9 Noida, Devender and Matthew, had come to the Mayur Vihar Branch of the HDFC Bank and withdrawn Rs. 12.15 lakhs around mid-day. They were supposed to go to the Vivek Vihar Branch of the Punjab National Bank to get a draft worth the same amount.

Around 1-15 p.m., when the employees were going to the Bank in their Maruti car, two young men riding a motorcycle and another person, also driving a Maruti car, intercepted their car on the road leading to Vasundhara in Kalyanpuri.

While one of them whipped out a country-made revolver and threatened the victims with dire consequences, the second rider reportedly hit Devender with a helmet and forced him to part with the bag in which the entire cash was kept. He gave the bag to the person sitting in the Maruti car and all three escaped from the spot. The police were informed about the incident around 1-30 p.m. Inquiries revealed that the robbers had been following the victims from the factory itself and committed the robbery on a desolate stretch. "The victims had gone from the bank to the factory where they noticed the car stationed nearby. They did not seem to have paid any heed at that time," said the Deputy Commissioner of Police (East), Nuzhat Hassan. She added that the police have got some definite leads and were working on them.

In another incident, three unidentified men barged into the house of a tuition teacher and escaped with thousands of rupees and some jewellery at Uttam Nagar in West Delhi early this morning.

According to the police, the robbers entered the house of Nagendra Rai at Vikas Nagar in Uttam Nagar around 3 a.m. At that time, his wife, Sangeeta, 60-year-old mother, Rajmata, and his elder brother were sleeping in the house. The robbers beat up Nagendra and his mother with sticks. His elder brother rushed to the terrace and raised an alarm. However, nobody apparently came to the family's rescue.

After inflicting injuries on the victims, the robbers escaped with Rs. 35,000 and some jewellery. The injured were admitted to a hospital and were reported to be out of danger. This is the third incident of robbery in Uttam Nagar in the past four days.

Cases of robbery have been registered in both the incidents and further investigations are on.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi