Less than 48 hours after a gang of dacoits looted 33 kg of gold and over Rs.7 lakh in cash from the Mannapuram Finance Ltd. branch at New Railway Road here, the Gurugram Police on Saturday claimed to have worked out the sensational heist with the arrest of four men.
About 30 kg of gold has been recovered and two pistols and four cartridges have been seized from the accused.
Announcing the arrests at a press conference, Gurugram Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said three of the accused belonged to Haryana and one hailed from Uttar Pradesh. The four have been identified as Hosihar Singh alias Manoj, Vikas Gupta alias Ankur, Bijender alias Chhabila and Devender alias Deva. Manoj, Ankur and Bijender were arrested at Sector 29 in Gurugram, while Devender was arrested in Ahmedabad. He is being brought to Gurugram.
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Aadhaar clue
The CCTV camera grabs of the accused and the technical surveillance proved to be of immense help in cracking the case, but the most crucial lead came in the form of an incomplete Aadhaar number of Devender which he had provided to the security guard at the branch.
“Devender gave a copy of his Aadhaar card to the company’s guard to gain entry to the branch. But even before the guard could note down the complete number, he was hit on the head. We completed this number using several permutations and combinations and reached his address in Jind,” said a senior police officer.
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The police scrutinised the details of around 300 customers visiting the Laxman Vihar and New Railway Road branches of the company over the past few days as part of the investigation.
Accused are neighbours
The four accused arrested so far were involved in petty jobs in Gurugram for long and came in contact with each other while staying in neighbouring PG hostels in Block “U” of DLF Phase-III.
Manoj, a resident of Farrukhnagar in Gurugram, was in dire need of money having lost over Rs.20 lakh in betting and hatched a conspiracy along with the three to commit a robbery. Ankur, who is involved in property dealing in Gurugram, called four of his acquaintances from his home town in Kanpur to be part of the heist. Bijender and his cousin Devender belong to Jind and run a call centre in Gurugram. The four men who came from Kanpur are still absconding.
Plan to flee to Gujarat
The accused had carried out a recce at the Laxman Vihar branch of the company. “The recce was carried out by Devender in the last week of January,” said the officer.
They, however, decided to loot the New Railway Road branch.
“After the dacoity, the four left their PG hostels and took rooms on rent in the same locality. They also procured new SIM cards.
While Devender went to Ahmedabad soon after the heist to arrange for the sale of the stolen gold, the three stayed behind with the booty and were planning to soon escape to Gujarat via road,” said the officer.