Lawyer hiding part of Def Col cash held

A 27-year-old woman — the lawyer of one of the accused in the recent Rs. 5.25-crore Defence Colony heist — has been arrested for allegedly helping hide a part of the booty, police said on Wednesday.

A 27-year-old woman — the lawyer of one of the accused in the recent Rs. 5.25-crore Defence Colony heist — has been arrested for allegedly helping hide a part of the booty, police said on Wednesday.

HT Image

Jyoti Batra, who practises at the Rohini district courts and is the lawyer for Deepak Sharma — the police’s first arrest in the case and who is believed to be one of those who led the robbers — was arrested from Raghubir Nagar, Chhaya Sharma, the deputy commissioner of police (south), said. Rs. 80 lakh was found after her arrest, Sharma said.

“On October 9, Deepak told policemen that he had given a bag containing cash to Batra. She was located and the bag, which contained around R70 lakh, was found,” DCP Sharma added.

Batra, after her arrest, told investigators about Pawan Sharma, a resident of east Delhi’s Mandawali. Batra, who knew Pawan since college, had asked him to keep some of the cash because of an apparently imminent threat of a raid on her home by income tax officials, the police said.

“Policemen went to Pawan’s home and found R10 lakh,” DCP Sharma added. This takes the amount recovered by the police in the case to Rs. 3.4 crore.

“The police are looking for two men who are suspected to have been involved in the robbery,” she added.

Batra, the police said, had been Deepak’s lawyer in a murder case, during the course of which they had become friends. He apparently “treated her as a sister”, sources in the force said.

Five men in a sedan had waylaid on September 28 a cash van in Defence Colony’s D block, pinned down a security guard and fled with Rs. 5.25 crore.