E-Paper
Police crack ₹1-crore Dera Bassi robbery with arrest of four robbers
Seven accused, including the trio that plotted the June 10 robbery, now in police net; ₹98.09 lakh recovered so far
Nearly two weeks after four men snatched ₹1 crore at gunpoint from a property dealer in Dera Bassi on June 10, police claim to have cracked the case with the arrest of all accused, including those who plotted the crime.
Since the incident, police have arrested seven people in all and recovered ₹98.09 lakh of the stolen money. The remaining stolen amount has been spent by the accused, police said.
Soon after the incident, police had arrested Ranjodh Singh for plotting the robbery after approaching the victim, Harjeet Singh Nagpal, with a lucrative property purchase offer.
Police said it was Ranjodh who had asked Harjeet to bring the money to his office on June 10, claiming some land owners will be visiting him to seal the deal. But it was armed robbers who showed up instead and robbed Harjeet of the money.
Besides him, police had nabbed Ranjodh’s accomplice Maninderjit Singh, a resident of Amritsar, who had been visiting Harjeet’s office to fix the property deal, and Saurav Sharma, a resident of Vishnu Nagar, Gohana, who was also part of the robbery conspiracy.
Those arrested now are Arya, Mahipal Singh, Sunny Jaglan and Abhai Singh, all residents of Panipat, Haryana.
Mohali senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vivek Sheel Soni said these four accused had accompanied Maninderjit to rob the property dealer on June 10.
While Maninderjit, Sunny and Abhai had walked into the property dealer’s office while brandishing a gun, Arya and Mahipal waited outside in a car.
After executing the robbery around 11 am, the accused had fled in full public view, on foot and a snatched motorcycle, after firing two shots at a vegetable vendor, who had managed to grab one of them.
The SSP said, “During investigation, ₹28 lakh were recovered from Ranjodh’s residence, ₹45 lakh from Maninderjit’s procession, ₹18 lakh from Mahipal, ₹2.59 lakh from Sunny and ₹4.5 lakh from Abhai, taking the total recovered money to ₹98.09 lakh. Besides, a Honda City car, a Toyota car and a pistol with three live cartridges have also been recovered from them.”
“The four accused were produced in court and a police remand of three days has been taken,” the SSP said.
