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Lift-and-loot gang involved in 50 cases busted, 4 members arrested
Gurugram: An eight-member gang, which allegedly robbed people after offering shared rides in a cab on the Gurugram-Jaipur expressway, has been busted, the police
Gurugram: An eight-member gang, which allegedly robbed people after offering shared rides in a cab on the Gurugram-Jaipur expressway, has been busted, the police said on Monday, adding that the gang was involved in 50 such cases committed over the past six months.
While four members of the gang have been arrested, the police said they have formed several teams, who are using technical surveillance to arrest the remaining suspects. The police have also seized three cars that the robbers used in the crime.
According to the police, they were receiving multiple complaints of lift-and-loot incidents and during preliminary investigation it was revealed that three different vehicles were involved in them. They said that it took seven days of rigorous technical and human surveillance to identify the men who are history sheeters.
The crime teams were camping in Nuh since Monday morning to arrest the suspects.
Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said that with this arrest, a major gang operating since June last year has been busted. “There are at least eight members in the gang. We have arrested four and teams are conducting raids to arrest the remaining ones. We have recovered Maruti Ertiga, Swift Dzire and Wagon- R from their possession from different villages,” he said.
Sangwan said there are two more gangs from Nuh operating on the expressway. “We have strong leads and the other gangs will also be busted soon. The crime teams are deployed at suspected locations,” he said.
The police said the arrested gang members would offer a lift at Hero Honda Chowk, Rajiv Chowk and Iffco Chowk. “The kingpin, Raish ,was a cab driver. After working for almost a year, he started offering lift to passengers and later robbed them of their belongings. His close aide Tasleem used to threaten the passengers and assault them if they refused to hand over their belongings,” said Sangwan.
The suspects have allegedly confessed to having looted around ₹3 lakh in cash, jewellery and other valuables, from the victims.
The modus operandi of all the gangs have been the same. They offer victims shared rides at night and then assault and rob them. In the present case, the gang had zeroed in on the three locations on a 10-km stretch of the Delhi-Gurugram expressway to look for targets.
Sangwan said that the police have formed five crime teams involving 25 personnels to deal with the rising incidents of lift-and-loot in the district. “The cyber police started rigorous technical exercise and reconstructed the sequence of events right from the start until the victim was let go by the assailants. While retracing the happenings of past incidents, the team picked up several vital clues, both technical and human,” he said.
The police are now collecting details of cases lodged at the various police stations, and are contacting victims to identify the suspects who are in their custody, officials said.
