Guard shot dead in robbery bid on van carrying ₹5 cr on DND Flyway
Police said the 50-year-old guard Vishambhar Singh and the driver Maninder were accompanied by Sandeep Kumar Shukla, the custodian of the cash. The three men were transporting about ₹5 crore in cash from the company’s office in Janakpuri to another branch in Noida, Shukla said.
An armed guard employed with a cash transporting firm to protect an armoured van, which was ferrying around ₹5 crore from Janakpuri to Noida, was shot dead by a group of men who attempted to rob the vehicle at DND Flyway late on Monday night.
When the assailants failed to open the locked cash box, they abducted the van’s driver and robbed him of ₹1,200 and other valuables before throwing him off their moving vehicle on the expressway, police said.
Police said the 50-year-old guard Vishambhar Singh and the driver Maninder were accompanied by Sandeep Kumar Shukla, the custodian of the cash. The three men were transporting about ₹5 crore in cash from the company’s office in Janakpuri to another branch in Noida, Shukla said.
According to Shukla, they left in the van at around at 8.40pm from Janakpuri. “As soon as we crossed the toll plaza on the DND Flyway at around 9.50pm and were about to reach Noida Link Road, a Scorpio car came right behind our van and its driver started honking frantically. As we allowed the vehicle to pass us, the Scorpio hit our van on the right. As the van slowed down, the SUV intercepted our vehicle and two men stepped down,” Shukla said.
In an attempt to make the heist appear like a case of road rage, the two men started fighting with Maninder, Shukla said. As they started roughing up Maninder, Vishambhar who was carrying a gun got down from the van to try and control the situation, he said.
“Seeing Vishambhar’s gun, the second man took out a pistol and shot him. Vishambhar was shot on his neck and he collapsed right there. Seeing this, Maninder and I also got out of the van. I somehow managed to escape the crime scene. I quickly crossed the road as I wanted to some distance from the attackers so I could call the cops. By then, I spotted another man getting out of the SUV and the three of them then overpowered Maninder,” said Shukla. He said he then hid nearby and called up the police control room (PCR) and reported the incident.
Shukla said, meanwhile another car, a Nissan Sunny, which he said had other armed accomplices, was blocking the van from behind. “There were three to four men in the other car. The assailants then fired 5-6 rounds on the three boxes in the van that had the cash but they failed to open any of them. Even though they managed to break open the ‘manual locks’ on the cases, but an ‘automatic lock’ on these cash boxes remained intact. The men then forced Maninder into the SUV and drove away with him,” Shukla said. He refused to elaborate on how the “automatic lock” works.
With the help of passersby Shukla said he then managed to rush Vishambhar, who was bleeding, to a hospital. Police also arrived at the spot within 10 minutes, he said.
Around half an hour later, Maninder, the driver, returned to the spot and told police officials there that the assailants had tossed him out of their moving SUV a few hundred metres down the road and had robbed him of ₹1,200, his cellphone and other valuables.
Police officials said they have registered a case of robbery and murder at Mayur Vihar police station and are trying to identify the assailants.
Additional deputy commissioner of police (east) Jasmeet Singh said police teams are conducting raids in order to nab the suspects. “We have possible leads and raids are being conducted. CCTV footages from the vicinity of the crime scene have been scanned,” Singh said.
The incident led to brief traffic disruptions on the DND Flyway as the police arrived with a forensics team to inspect the scene of crime.