Offer lift-and-loot cases continue in Gurugram, warning boards go missing

After about 15 such cases were reported in a span of two months in the end of 2018, the city police had, on December 17, arrested a four-member gang for allegedly robbing people after offering shared rides on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway.

At least four people were robbed while sharing rides in cabs in the first three weeks of January but little seems to have been done to either rein in the assailants or make people aware about such gangs.

Commuters trying to hail ride-sharing cabs at Rajiv Chowk in Gurugram on Wednesday, January 23, 2019. (Parveen Kumar / HT Photo)

After about 15 such cases were reported in a span of two months in the end of 2018, the city police had, on December 17, arrested a four-member gang for allegedly robbing people after offering shared rides on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway. But people are still being robbed in a similar way in 2019 across different locations in the city.

Before the December 17 arrest, the Gurugram Police had said that they will put up boards at major intersections to warn people about such rides.

“In December, we had put up boards in five majors areas in the city, including Rajiv Chowk, IFFCO Chowk and Hero Honda Chowk, urging people not to take shared rides in cabs,” Shamsher Singh, assistant commissioner of police (ACP) (crime), said Wednesday.

But when HT visited Rajiv Chowk on Wednesday evening, no such board was found and police officers, traffic police officers and autorickshaw drivers said they have never seen such warning boards in the area. “See, there are no boards here warning people not to take shared rides,” an assistant sub-inspector from Civil Lines Police Station said, with his arms stretched towards both directions of the chowk.

Though two boards were found at IFFCO Chowk, policemen at the spot said they were put up around 10 months ago using funds from their police station in Sector 18. “We had erected five boards more than 10 months ago,” said a police officer from Sector 18 Police Station, who was on patrol duty in the area.

When told that boards were not found at the intersections, ACP Singh that he will look into the matter. The ACP said two teams of the crime investigation agency (CIA) are working on arresting the culprits behind the new wave of such cases. “In December, we had arrested a gang and cracked around 15 cases. This is a new gang and we are working to catch them,” he said.

The ACP said they were yet to identify members of the gang or get any CCTV footage of the accused. The number of cases could be higher as not all FIRs are uploaded online by the Gurugram Police and they do not maintain a separate number of such cases.

On Wednesday evening, dozens of people were seen waiting for shared cabs at Rajiv Chowk and IFFCO Chowk.

“I know about these cases (of people getting robbed), but I still take shared rides as there are no other transportation. I usually get into cabs with a colleague,” said Preeti Rai, 24, while waiting for a cab to Dwarka at Rajiv Chowk. Rai, who hails from Kolkata, said she was new to the city and works at a private company on Sohna Road.

Due to lack of connectivity in the city and to Delhi, mainly office-goers take shared rides in cabs with unknown people to reach their destinations.