Gurugram: 4 suspects booked for robbing Iraqi couple of money needed for surgery

A couple from Iraq was robbed of $3200 ( ₹2

A couple from Iraq was robbed of $3200 ( ₹2.44 lakh), more than half of what they had brought to India for a surgery, by four men who posed as police personnel and frisked them on the pretext of checking their travel documents at Sector 39 in Gurugram on Thursday night, said police on Friday.

Police said the woman has a cyst in her liver and requires surgery, for which she came to India with her husband on March 6. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Police said the couple is from Al Seha in northern Iraq. The woman has a cyst in her liver and requires surgery, for which she came to India with her husband on March 6.

Police said the incident took place when the couple stepped out of a restaurant after having dinner in Sector-39 around 8pm on Thursday.

A senior police officer said the woman expressed her suspicion to her husband when she spotted a man sitting near their table at the restaurant and watching them.

“As soon as the couple moved towards the counter to pay the bill, she spotted the man making a call and leaving the restaurant,” said the officer adding that the role of a gang of Iraqi nationals, who allegedly have been involved in several such incidents in Delhi-NCR region in the past, could not be ruled out.

The man called his friend, who lives in Gurugram’s Sector 108, and informed him about the incident. Based on the complaint registered by the man’s friend,an FIR was registered against the unidentified suspects under sections 379 (punishment for theft) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the IPC at Sadar police station on Friday.

Quoting the complaint, police said a car stopped right in front of the couple as soon as they stepped out of the restaurant and four men in police uniform came out of the vehicle.

When contacted, the man’s friend said that the suspects allegedly flashed some ID cards and identified themselves as police. “One of them had a non-contact infrared thermometer in hand. The suspects told the couple they needed to be checked for drugs and also checked their travel documents. The spot where the couple was intercepted had very poor light, due to which the faces of the suspects were not clearly visible,” said the man’s friend.

He added they frisked the man’s pockets and also checked his wife’s handbag. “They pulled out passports, keys and $6,000 ( ₹4.58 lakh) from my friend’s pocket... One of the suspects put the money back in his pocket. After checking, the suspects fled in the car,” said the friend.

Soon the man realised that the suspect had put back only $2,800 in his pocket and fled with the rest of the money. He immediately contacted his friend, who rushed to the spot and informed police.

The man’s friend said one of the suspects was speaking in broken Arabic. “A similar incident was reported six months ago, in which an Iraqi national was stopped in the name of checking and robbed in the same locality,” he said.

“My friend’s wife got admitted to a private hospital in Sector 56 on Friday and is scheduled to undergo surgery on Saturday. It is expected to cost around ₹4 lakh, of which the suspects have already fled with ₹2.44 lakh. The couple will leave India in ten days,” said the friend.

Sub-inspector Mukesh Kumari, station house officer of Sadar police station, said police are trying to trace the suspects and the car. “The car’s colour and model is clear but the registration number is not visible properly. We are trying to get the registration number,” she said.