Man held for opening fire at Amrapali Sapphire society in Noida

Before entering the housing society, the accused and three others had beaten a person, who had come to deliver food in the society.

A 30-year-old man was arrested for allegedly opening fire in the air at Amrapali Sapphire society in Sector 45 on Thursday, leaving the residents in fear.

A 30-year-old man was arrested for allegedly opening fire in air outside the Amrapli Saphire society. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

Police said the accused, Arun, a resident of Shiv Colony in Delhi along with three other men had entered the society from its gate number 1 around 2.20am after arguing with two security guards on duty. The four men had told security guards that they had to meet one of their known in K tower of phase-1 of the housing complex.

Since the four men were in an inebriated condition and had already opened fire in the air outside the gate number 1, the guards on duty could not stop them, fearing they would be killed in the fight, police said.

Sumit Pradhan, supervisor and the complainant in the matter, told police the four men started running towards gate number 2, where he was present. “I asked them whom they want to meet and they could not say anything. Later one of them said his relative lives in K tower. I asked him his name, he could not tell it and the four were drunk. They started marching towards K tower gate and the guards were alerted not to allow them inside the tower.”

On reaching near K tower, they were not allowed to enter. The four men started fighting with guards and created ruckus.

Security in charge, Upender Upadhya, another witness in this case, told police that Amrapali Sapphire is divided into phase 1 and 2 with a gate. He said that the four men sensing trouble started running towards the phase 2 and jumped over the gate.

“The four men saw the team of guards following them. One of them opened fire in the air to terrorise the guards. However, the gunman also opened two fires in the air. He alerted the intruder who had opened fire and told him that he would be killed. The accused stopped with a countrymade pistol in his hand. Three of them managed to flee from there,” said Upadhyay.

A call was made to police control room at 2.40am and a police team reached the spot at 2.51 am. Station house officer of Sector 39 police station, Ajay Kumar Singh, said, “The accused was caught by security guards and handed over to us. We recovered the countrymade pistol from him and have registered a case under Arms Act and trespassing, rioting against him.”

Singh said that the man was drunk and could not tell them as to why they had entered the building. Later on Thursday afternoon, he told them that one of the three men wanted to meet his relative in the society and he did not have any other information.

Before entering the housing society, they had beaten a person, who had come to deliver food in the society, the SHO said.

Most of the people were asleep, but few women who are part of a society’s Whatsapp group raised an alarm among the residents.

The incident caused fear psychosis among the residents of the society who claim that the city has law and order problem.

Sarika Mishra, who lives in L tower phase 1 of Amrapali Sapphire said, “I heard three gunshots and people shouting. I immediately dropped the message on the Whatsapp group -- Ladies Gang, which has women members. It was circulated with others also only to raise an alert. We did not know what the firing was all about.”

According to residents, gunshots were echoing in their ears throughout the day and said city needed policing with more officers, pointing towards implementation of commissionerate.