Three of gang arrested after brief shoot-out in Kavi Nagar area

The Ghaziabad police on Thursday morning arrested three members of a gang allegedly involved in robbery after a brief shoot-out in Kavi Nagar Industrial Area.

The Ghaziabad police on Thursday morning arrested three members of a gang allegedly involved in robbery after a brief shoot-out in Kavi Nagar Industrial Area.

HT Image

The shoot-out, investigators said, took place when the suspected robbers opened fire at a police patrol team which had launched a raid in Kavi Nagar area The police team fired back in self defence and later arrested all three suspected robbers, two of whom had sustained gunshot injuries.

Investigators said that the three men were involved in cash loot from an ATM in Vasundhara in August.

The three suspects were identified as Kamruddin, Shahrun and Usman — who all go by single names and are residents of Mewat region in Haryana. The cops said that Kamruddin and Usman were serving life sentences at a jail in Delhi in connection to a gangrape incident of 2010 and had come our on parole during the month of March. They later went missing.

“The three men are part of gang which conducts recce at different locations and target ATMs and shops to loots cash or valuables. On the night of August 31 they had targeted an ATM at Vasundhara locality and fled with cash after cutting through the machine with the help of gas-cutter. The bank having the ATM has not given us the amount of cash lost during the incident, but our assessment is that it is between Rs 4-5 lakh,” said Abhishek Verma, superintendent of police (city).

During the Vasundhara robbery, the men had entered the ATM and sprayed black paint over the CCTV cameras to disable them before cutting through the machine and fleeing on cash. During the incident, they used a Santro car which was captured on one of the CCTVs in the locality during investigations.

“During an early morning check, the three men in the same Santro car were captured on a CCTV in Kavi Nagar. A raid was conducted but they opened fire at the police. We fired back and two of them sustained gunshot injuries to their legs. We have recovered Rs 40,000 in cash, gas-cutter machine and cylinder, besides the spray which they used to blind CCTVs during their robberies. We have also recovered several mobiles, which they stole from several shops during an incident at Shastri Nagar and Avantika on the night of July 22,” Verma, added.

According to investigators, suspect Kamruddin has 16 cases of heinous crime against him at Delhi, Haryana and Ghaziabad, while Shahrun and Usman have 12 and nine cases, respectively, against them.