Robberies more daring, innovative

By Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Robbers appear to be having a whale of a time in Delhi. They are getting bolder by the day and the lure of making easy money seems to encouraging them to come up with newer ideas for carrying out their designs. Little wonder, the amounts involved have been rising steadily and alarmingly: the latest heist of Rs 2 crores just showing the level to which the activities of such criminals have risen.

As for the Delhi police, it has been unable to keep such criminals in check. Worse, the recoveries following the arrests of such persons have been abysmally low -- at times because of excessive spending by the culprits and mostly because of the conduct of the police personnel involved in the investigations.

A look at some of the sensational cases in the recent past is an eye-opener. In March this year, notorious criminal Suleman had committed a dacoity of Rs 16.5 lakhs at Rajouri Garden in West Delhi. Using two two-wheelers and a three-wheeler, he and his associates had looted the money from two commission agents, Satyen Bharadwaj and Rakesh Bhatia, in broad daylight.

The well-built Suleman, who was involved in about 10 cases, was finally nabbed on June 30 by the Special Staff of Delhi police following an encounter in the Bawana area of North-West Delhi. As Suleman allegedly fired at the policemen on being signaled to stop, the cops returned the fire, injuring him on the thigh and in the back near the hip.

Following the encounter, Suleman was admitted to Jaipur Golden Hospital, where he was operated upon and declared out of danger after the two bullets were removed. But in view of the injury, the police personnel did not take Suleman into custody for investigation.

As a senior police officer said, Suleman was sent to judicial custody and that process continued due to some ``technical fault''. The result being that so far the Delhi police have not been able to make any recovery in the case. And while police officers point out that they knew how the sum of Rs 16.5 lakhs had been shared, they lament that it was lost because of multiplicity of investigating agencies. The robbery took place in West Delhi, the encounter in North West and it was South Delhi police which nabbed the accused.

The performance of Delhi police was much better in the Rs 57-lakh robbery case of Civil Lines in January. When the case was worked out in April, the police were able to recover Rs 48 lakhs. Incidentally, it was in the investigation of this case that Sub- Inspector Vinod Kumar Yadav was killed while trying to search a car on January 6.

It was revealed that the driver, Rajender Pal, who had decamped with the cash and car, had won the confidence of his employer, Mr. D. D. Mittal, a bullion merchant in Chandni Chowk. He had hatched the conspiracy with one Mukhtiyar Singh, who along with his son, Ravi, and some associates had spent some of the robbed money for buying a Tata Sumo and staying lavishly in Chandigarh, Jamshedpur and Mumbai. The culprits, who wanted to lead a lavish life, were caught before they could fully realise their dream.

But the way the accused in the Rs 2 crore heist have been able to avoid arrest for nearly four weeks now, is gradually becoming a major cause of concern. The police have identified all the accused.

The driver, Dharambir Singh, and gunman, Jaswant Singh, of the Brinks Arya security agency van, who had looted Rs 2 crore of the ICICI bank after hijacking their own vehicle at gun-point, were natives of Khera Manajat village in the Rai area of Sonepat district. They had committed the robbery along with two of their associates, Jagbir and Jitender, both natives of Shivli village in Rai.

The four accused were mates at a village `akhara' and had planned the robbery to the last detail. They fled with the cash -- contained in three boxes and a suitcase -- in a Maruti 800 car after locking up five other van staff in the vehicle.

Police sources say the car was driven to the farm-cum-animal shed of one Lilu in Bijwasan by the accused. On reaching the farm, the accused had dug up a pit and hid the money boxes in it.

Then they drove off to Churu in Rajasthan and abandoned the Maruti car. Back in Delhi, the culprits bought a Ford tractor on which they loaded the money boxes on July 26 and crossed into Haryana.

This case again witnessed the involvement of three different teams. The South West Delhi police in whose area the van was found, the New Delhi police in whose area the robbery was committed and the Crime Branch, to which the case has been handed. While several police teams are keeping watch at the native place of the accused, the culprits have eluded arrest by staying away.

Though Lilu has been arrested for conspiring with the accused in hiding their belongings, the Delhi police still remains clueless on the whereabouts of the prime accused who, they believe, worked on their own in the case. It remains to be seen when they will be nabbed and how much money would be shown as recovered from the huge amount.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Other States
Previous : Congress Ministers cautioned
Next     : Rumblings over Dalit rally