Snatchers in Gurugram had shot woman driving back home at night, case solved: Police

Police arrested the three suspects from Bhondsi village in Gurugram on Wednesday night

Gurugram Police on Thursday morning said it has solved the murder case of a young woman (26), who was shot in the head by three men, when the victim was driving back home with her fiancé near Golf Course Extension Road at night on November 3.

Representational Photo.

Police arrested the three suspects from Bhondsi village in Gurugram on Wednesday night. The trio, who are hardened criminals, had allegedly fired at the victim in a bid to intimidate her after she had tried to beat a hasty retreat.

Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Gurugram Police, said the suspects were involved in over 1,000 snatching cases and at least three murders in the millennium city.

“The suspects revealed during questioning that they had intercepted a car to rob the occupants, but the woman at the wheel tried to speed away following which they shot at her to threaten the duo. Unfortunately, the bullet hit the woman and she collapsed,” he said.

Pooja Sharma, the victim, was driving towards Sector 40 with her fiancé, Sagar Manchanda, when the accused on a motorcycle allegedly asked them to stop and step out of their vehicle.

Manchanda had told the police that the attackers fled soon after the shooting incident following which he drove Sharma to a private hospital, where she passed away a day later.

Sharma had sustained a bullet injury in her head, which could not be removed, despite a surgical procedure, the police said.

She worked for an information technology (IT) company’s medical claims and insurance department. Manchanda, a software engineer, was his colleague.

The accused belong to Nuh, Mahendergarh in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh (MP) and shared a rented accommodation in the village. They used to rob the public in Gurugram after dark.

Sangwan said the accused largely targeted people at isolated stretches and conducted reconnaissance of the area before targeting their victims.

“The trio used a motorbike with a fake number plate and they own a car as well. They had visited the spot in their car soon after the shooting incident. They were under the impression that Sharma had survived. The following day, they gave their evening exploits a miss and vigorously scanned TV news channels for any information on the incident. They also bought an English daily newspaper for three consecutive days to get updates on the case,” he said.

KK Rao, commissioner, Gurugram Police, said that it was a blind case, as the closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage recovered from the spot was of little help. “Our teams had questioned nearly 500 people in a bid to crack the case. Policemen were deployed in civvies at several spots to get leads on the gang. The arrest has led to the cracking of over 1,000 cases of snatching and at least three murder cases in Gurugram,” Rao said.

Police said the gang was also involved in snatching the mobile phone of a woman (45) from a mall in Sector 51 and was later trying to extort Rs 10 lakh from her. They had threatened to make her pictures, videos and other content stored in her smartphone public, if she did not cough up Rs 10 lakh.

The woman had lodged a complaint at Sector 50 police station on October 2, but the police had failed to trace the suspects.

The accused had even shot dead one of their friends on Diwali night at Shivaji Nagar in Gurugram, the police added.