Six held for cash van robbery in Gurugram

Gurugram: The Gurugram Police has arrested six out of seven suspects in connection with a robbery in which around Rs 1 crore was plundered from a cash van last week, officials said on Sunday.

The crime unit, sector 40 team, nabbed all six from Delhi and Shambhu border, Ambala.

The accused were produced in a city court on Sunday and they have been taken on four days police remand. A special team is conducting raids to nab the seventh accused who is still at large.

On April 18, five people robbed Rs 96, 32,931 from a cash van of M/s S&IB Pvt. Ltd. of Jhandewalan, Delhi at gunpoint after throwing chilli powder into the eyes of the driver and one more person.

The van used to pick up cash from T3, T1 parking and other and then deposit it in HDFC Bank. Three men -- Akhilesh, Vipin and Ranjeet (driver) -- were transporting the cash when the heist took place.

CCTV footage analysis showed that the car used in the robbery was bearing a fake UP number plate.

Four crime teams were deputed and they started looking at similar older cases of looting of cash vans, ex-employees of the cash transportation company, and analysis of CCTV footage across Gurugram, following which, the original number of the car was obtained and it was found to be a Delhi number with address at Chatarpur.

On the intervening night of Thursday-Friday, a team picked up Diwankar Arora alias Mannu, resident of Chhatarpur, recovered the car, as well as the fake UP number plate.

He was produced in court on Friday and we obtained remand till April 28. On interrogation, he revealed the names of the other four suspects who had joined him in the robbery.

The others were identified as Neel Kamal alias Kamal, resident of Chhatarpur; Gulab, resident of Palwal; Jony, resident of Faridabad and Jitender alias Jeetu (apparently from Bihar), said police commissioner Kala Ramachandran.

After targeting the van, Jeetu had left for Uttar Pradesh while the other three had left for Vaishno Devi temple. Three teams of Crime Team Gurgaon Police left on Friday afternoon- one for Katra, one was stationed at Pathankot and the third one at Shambhu border.

The team at Katra tracked the culprits to a hotel but the accused had checked out minutes before the team reached. They then alerted the teams at Shambhu and Pathankot. Ambala SP was also requested for assistance at the toll place. The three men were arrested on Saturday night at the Ambala toll plaza near Shambhu border.

Following preliminary interrogation, raids were conducted on the intervening night of Saturday/Sunday and Rs 70.50 lakh, one revolver and four cartridges were recovered and two more accomplices, Kulbir and Javed, both residents of Chhattarpur, were arrested. Javed was an ex-employee who worked as driver of the cash van of M/s S&IB Pvt. Ltd. some months ago. Kulbir owned a transport company in Chatarpur.

"Javed, Kulbir and Nilkamal are childhood friends. Nilkamal had come in contact with Jeetu and Gulab in 2008/09 in Bhondsi Jail where all three were lodged in different cases. Nilkamal had lived as tenant in Diwankar's house. Johny is a cousin of Nilkamal.

"These seven people hatched the plan in Kulbir's office. They did a recce on April 7. Made an attempt on April 11 but did not follow through since Jeet had not turned up. Finally, on April 18, they committed the crime. All six are on police remand till April 28. Jeetu has to be arrested and the remaining cash has to be recovered", the police commissioner added. (PTI)