Domestic helps commit robbery at jeweller’s house in Delhi's Pitampura
Two domestic helps, Aman Kumar Roy (19) and Sanjeev Kumar Ram (18), threw chilli powder in the eyes of their employer, Yogesh Singhal’s wife at her house in Pitampura and robbed a portable locker containing cash and jewellery worth ₹50 lakh.
Two men, employed as domestic helps at a jeweller’s home in northwest Delhi’s Pitampura, threw chilli powder on his wife’s eyes, locked her in the bathroom and fled with a portable locker containing cash and jewellery worth over ₹50 lakh on Tuesday evening--within less than a week of their employment.
Police arrested the two men, along with two of their associates, within six hours of the crime and recovered the entire loot from them, said police on Thursday.
Those arrested were identified as Aman Kumar Roy (19), Sanjeev Kumar Ram (18), Ram Pukar Yadav (26), and Sunil (21). Police said all of them are natives of Bihar but were working as domestic helps in Delhi for the past few months.They all conspired to commit the robbery to gain quick and easy money, said police.
Roy and Ram were employed by jeweller Yogesh Singhal, president of the Bullion and Jewellers’ Association at Kuch Mahajani near Chandni Chowk, on the recommendation of his old domestic help Rahul, six days before the robbery. Police said Singhal had not done their police verification before hiring them.
Singhal said he employed the two men to remove rainwater that had flooded the basement of his house in Pitampura’s SU-block. The two lived in the basement while Singhal’s family lived on the ground floor.
On Tuesday, Singhal was at his shop in Chandni Chowk with his son. In the evening, his daughter went to Rohini Sector-13 for some work, leaving her 52-year-old mother Pramila Singhal at home. Around 6pm, when Pramila called Roy to prepare a cup of tea for her, he entered the house with Ram, took a bowl of red chilli powder from the kitchen and went to the bedroom where Pramila was lying, said Singhal.
“The two threw chilli powder on my wife’s face. One of them sat on her chest...and tried to throttle her. He also removed the gold earings she was wearing. The other man tied her limbs and locked her inside the bathroom,” said Singhal.
Police said around 10 minutes later, Pramila somehow untied herself and came out of the bathroom. On checking the CCTV cameras installed at home, she found that the suspects fled with the portable locker kept in the room and immediately raised an alarm.
“The police were informed about the crime. A case of robbery was registered at the Maurya Enclave police station and the northwest district’s special staff as well as the crime branch were roped in to nab the suspects,” said a senior police officer.
“The teams analysed the call records of the suspects’ cellphone and found that they had last called one Sunil, who worked as a domestic help in the same neighbourhood. Sunil was caught and he confessed to his involvement in the robbery. His interrogation led to the arrest of the two prime suspects and Yadav from Shakurpur within six hours. The stolen cash and jewellery were recovered from them,” said the officer.
In another case, a 47-year-old resident of Nepal, Raju Thapa, was arrested from the India-Nepal border on Tuesday while he was fleeing with ₹25 lakh cash and two diamond pieces worth ₹15 lakh which he had stolen from his employer’s office at a Saket shopping mall on September 11. The crime was reported on September 13 and the police nabbed Thapa within 10 hours from near Lakhimpur Kheri. Around ₹14 lakh cash and three cellphones that he purchased using the stolen money were recovered. Police is interrogating him to recover the stolen diamonds and the rest of the money.