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Gang of four behind Noida’s night of horror

Special Correspondent

IT ALL HAPPENED HERE: Police examining the spot where young Sheeba Thomas was gunned down by unidentified assailants in Noida.

NOIDA: A day after a young woman was shot dead and a retired lieutenant-general seriously injured by unidentified assailants in this township next door to Delhi, the police on Wednesday said they suspected involvement of the same gang in both the incidents.

The four suspects who rode a motorcycle and a scooter are also suspected to be involved in at least three other incidents of robbery reported from different parts of Noida the same night, the police said.

Twenty-six-year-old Sheeba Thomas, a former employee of an airline, was waylaid by the armed assailants and shot dead in Sector 31 of Noida around midnight on Tuesday night when she resisted their robbery attempt. Sheeba bled to death on the spot.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police (Noida) A. Satish Ganesh, the incident was the fall-out of an altercation between the young woman and the four assailants, who were on a motorcycle and a scooter. The men, who had been tailing Sheeba, forced her to bring her Hyundai Accent car to a halt and then tried to snatch her valuables. When she resisted them and even kicked one of the assailants, one of them pulled out a revolver and shot her before driving away, said Mr. Ganesh.

The police, however, found the victim’s laptop, wallet, mobile phone and other personal possessions intact in her car.

A former employee of Virgin Atlantic, Sheeba used to run a call centre in Sector 65 of Noida. She had floated the call centre jointly with her friend Nishant Kumar Singh after quitting the airline job only a week ago. The two lived in the same flat at C-143 in Sector 149 of Noida with their dogs. The police officer denied any involvement of her friend in the crime and said he in fact supplied details about her family. Sheeba’s father, Thomas G. Varghese, is based at Wardha in Maharashtra.

In the other incident, the assailants shot at and injured Lieutenant-General (Retd.) Tejinder Jit Singh Gill in an attempted carjack near Amity School in Sector 44. Gen. Gill was returning from a party in Delhi Cantonment when the young men flagged him down and tried to snatch the ignition key. When Gen. Gill offered resistance, the men shot him twice in the stomach and the third bullet grazed his left hand.

However, he managed to drive to his residence and was taken to a nearby hospital by his family. He was later taken to the Army’s Research and Referral Hospital and is now said to be stable.

Mr. Ganesh said the police had gathered crucial leads and it seemed the same gang was behind all the five incidents reported on Tuesday night.

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