Advertisement on auto helps Delhi cops arrest 3 men who robbed tempo driver

Police said Abhishek Singh, who is accused of leading the robbery, is also involved in 18 other cases of theft and robbery

NEW DELHI: An advertisement for an ayurvedic laxative on an autorickshaw has helped the southwest district police to identify the vehicle used in a robbery on February 19 and arrest the three suspects, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

(File Photo)

The prime suspect, Abhishek Singh, 28, a resident of Kailash Nagar in east Delhi, was involved in 18 other cases of theft and robberies. His two associates, Arun Kumar, 23, also from Kailash Nagar, and Harprit Singh, 21, from Sangam Vihar in south Delhi, have also been arrested.

Police said the three were caught after their last victim, a 26-year-old commercial tempo driver Ajay Kumar, recalled seeing the advertisement for a laxative on the autorickshaw that helped investigators track down the suspects.

“The three revealed that they had committed many robberies, snatchings and thefts in Delhi. To escape from the police, they repainted some parts of the auto,” said deputy commissioner of police (DCP) (Southwest District) Rohit Meena.

Meena said Ajay Kumar was headed to Chhatarpur past midnight on February 19 when his goods tempo had a flat tyre near IIT Gate flyover at about 1:30am. He left the two men accompanying him with the vehicle and headed back to Azadpur to get a spare tyre.

The driver stopped the vehicle at an isolated spot in Sector 12 of RK Puram, ostensibly because one of the passengers wanted to relieve himself. The other two tell Kumar to hand over the money and valuables. When he resisted, their third accomplice hit him with a sharp object, inflicting cuts on his face, neck and right hand. In all, they took away ₹5,000, his mobile phone and other papers.

“It was a blind case of robbery after stabbing as the area where the crime happened around 2 am on February 19 was not covered by any CCTV camera. The only clue that the victim had given to us was that it was an old auto-rickshaw and had an advertising banner on its body. Investigators scanned CCTV cameras in a radius of 500 metres from the crime scene. They found 10 autos passing by and one of them had the advertisement banner of an ayurvedic laxative,” said DCP Meena.

Meena said the investigating team contacted the advertisement agency which shared a list of 1,600 autorickshaws in the National Capital Region with the advertisement. “Through technical and manual investigation, the police verified the autos and zeroed in on one auto bearing Haryana’s registration number which led to the arrest of the three suspects.