Four offer lift, extort 28 K from engineer, say sorry and leave

He was abducted around 7.30pm on Tuesday when he was waiting at Subhash Chowk to get a lift to go to his rented accommodation near Jharsa Chowk, when a white WagonR pulled over and offered him a shared ride

In the 12th case of its kind this year, a 27-year-old man was allegedly assaulted and robbed of ₹26,000—₹10,000 of which he had to borrow to ensure his release—and his mobile phone by four people, who offered him a shared cab ride from Shankar Chowk, the police said Thursday.

The victim remained with the accused for three hours, during which time they took money from his bank account using his ATM card, bought beers with it. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

The victim, who did not wish to be identified, said he was abducted around 7.30pm on Tuesday when he was waiting at Subhash Chowk to get a lift to go to his rented accommodation near Jharsa Chowk, when a white WagonR pulled over and offered him a shared ride, the police said. “I sat on the window side of the back seat and after a while, the man sitting in the middle said that he wanted to vomit and jumped to the side seat,” the victim stated in his complaint.

When the car reached Iffco Chowk, the accused asked the victim to give all his belongings. “I tried to escape; I punched one of them and bit another one, but they hit me in the eye and were able to overpower me,” said the victim, an engineer, who works at a construction company in the city, said that he has a red eye from the assault.

According to the police, the accused then told him that they would not let him go till he gave them ₹25,000. Since he did not have enough money in his bank account, they forced him to ask his friend to transfer ₹10,000.

The victim remained with the accused for three hours, during which time they took money from his bank account using his ATM card, bought beers with it.

“They bought beers with the money and even offered me one, but I refused. They then gave me a bottle of water and one of them stuffed some chips in my mouth,” he said, adding that the accused kept saying they would not have attacked him if he did not attacked them and that one of them even apologised.

According to the complainant, the accused dropped him off near Sikri village in Ballabhgarh and gave him ₹100 to reach home.

“We are yet identify the accused or find any CCTV footage of the incident,” DLF Phase 2 station house officer Vishnu Parshad said.

An FIR has been registered at DLF phase 2 police station under section 379A (snatching) of the Indian Penal Code.

In the last two months of 2018, about 15 such cases were reported mainly from the main junctions along the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. On December 17, the police arrested one gang of four that allegedly robbed people after offering them shared cab rides on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway. In January, another four-member gang was also busted by the city police, but such instances are being reported, now from different parts of the city, with frightening regularity.

Multiple teams of the crime investigation agency (CIA) of the city police are probing the case and the police said that multiple such gangs were operating.