E-Paper
Masked men steal 2 cars, motorcycle at gunpoint in Ropar, Kurali, abandon them later
Two gunmen, one wearing a mask and the other with a cloth covering his face, stole the bike first and then the other two cars within a span of 50 minutes before disappearing
Officials of three police stations at Kurali and Rupnagar were left baffled over a mysterious case in which two masked gunmen stole a sedan, a sports utility vehicle (SUV) and a motorcycle on Monday in the Kurali and Ropar areas and abandoned them later.
Sources who did not wish to be identified said two gunmen, one wearing a mask and the other with a cloth covering his face, stole the bike first and then the other two cars within a span of 50 minutes before disappearing, leaving the police groping in the dark 24 hours later.
The sequence of events pieced together reveal that the men first stopped a Splendor Pro motorcycle (PB 65-P-6908) driven by Nadeem Ahmed near his village Lakhnaur at around 2 pm. They then threatened him with a gun, pushed him and fled with the vehicle.
Minutes later, they left the bike and carjacked a Dzire (HR 99-ABY-8303) near a liquor vend at Charheri village on the Kurali-Ropar bypass road from Pardeep Kumar, a resident of Phase-7 here, and drove towards Ropar. The, while approaching the Bheora village bridge, they snatched a Toyota Fortuner from Ramandeep Singh, a resident of Ghandoli village, at around 2.50 pm.
After driving towards the village roads to avoid the toll plaza on the highway and reaching Bindrakh road near a river, they abandoned the SUV and fled from the spot.
Officials at the Sadar and City police stations in Kurali and the Sadar police station in Rupnagar later recovered the vehicles and registered three separate cases under Sections 392, 411, 382, 34 of the Indian Penal Code and 25, 27-54-59 of the Arms Act.
Police teams of both the districts were scrutinising CCTV camera footage at various spots to trace the miscreants.
Call dumps of the crime spots have also been lifted, but no leads have been found.
