Elderly fuel station owner takes on robber outside bank in south Delhi, shot

The injured man, 62-year-old Kamaljeet Singh Sethi, owns a fuel station in south Delhi’s Lado Sarai and lives with his family in Mehrauli.

An elderly fuel station owner was shot at outside a bank in south Delhi’s Shivalik on Tuesday morning after he took on a robber who snatched his bag containing ₹13 lakh in cash.

An elderly fuel station owner was shot at outside a bank in south Delhi’s Shivalik on Tuesday morning after he took on a robber who snatched his bag containing Rs 13 lakh cash.

An auto driver crossing the spot tried to fight the robber, who knocked him unconscious with the butt of a pistol. Much of the crime was captured by a CCTV camera installed outside the bank. The 62-year-old man tried to hold on to his bag even after he was shot but the robber managed to pull it away and escaped with the cash. Chinmoy Biswal, Additional DCP (south), said that the robber remained unidentified until Tuesday evening.

The injured man, Kamaljeet Singh Sethi, owns a fuel station in south Delhi’s Lado Sarai and lives with his family in Mehrauli. The crime happened around 10.30 am on Tuesday when Sethi arrived outside a bank in Shivalik Colony in Malviya Nagar.

Sethi had parked his Swift Dzire car outside the bank and come out of his vehicle with a cash-laden bag in his hand when a masked man approached him and tried to snatch his bag from his hand, CCTV footage showed.

Sethi collapsed but he would not let go of his bag. He continued to latch on to the bag even as the robber dragged him several feet on the roadside. But just as Sethi gave up, an auto driver passing by tried to take on the robber.

“I had just dropped someone when I saw the sardar (Sethi) shout out for help. I rushed to help him but the robber hit me on my head with a pistol and I fell unconscious,” said Pankaj, the autorickshaw driver, who revealed only his first name. He required five stitches but is out of danger.

A bleeding Sethi was helped by a woman employee staffer of the bank. The elderly man had managed to lift himself off the floor even after being shot. “The bullet passed through his stomach and he needed to be operated upon,” said the additional DCP. He is still admitted in hospital.

Maqsood Ahmed, a security guard deployed at the bank branch, was at the toilet when the robbery happened. He said he rushed to the scene when he was alerted by the bank staff but it was too late by then.

A case has been registered at Malviya Nagar police station and multiple teams formed to crack the case. “It is unlikely that the robber was operating alone. We presume he was helped by at least two other persons who may have been waiting nearby on a motorcycle. We are scanning CCTV footage for clues,” said Biswal.