Delhi: Trio took on guise of people they robbed

NEW DELHI: With youthful exuberance, these three men tried out different guises and modus operandi to rob people they gave a lift to in their car at night. Once a man they targeted in west Delhi turned out to a lawyer. They divested him of his belongings and then began posing as black-coated lawyers to stop and rob unsuspecting people. If they were questioned, they flashed the Bar Council of India identity card they had taken from their lawyer victim.
In a similar fashion, they robbed a policeman and began going out on their nightly excursions in the guise of cops. One of them would wear a police uniform they took from their victim and sit in the front seat of their car, a reassuring sight for people who wouldn’t then hesitate to accept the lift.
This gang was finally reined in on Friday. The kingpin, Dalip, is just 18 years old, while Aniket is 19 and Rajkumar 20. All three are school dropouts living in MehramNagar and Qutub Vihar in south-west Delhi.
The gang operated on the roads between Dhaula Kuan and Chanakyapuri at night, using their Maruti Eeco van and Maruti WagonR car in turns to avoid being identified. As one drove, the other two posed as passengers. The person driving the car would pull over whenever he sighted people stranded on the street and negotiated a fare with them.
Once in the car, the lift-taker would find a gun staring at him. Any resistance would be met with assault. The trio then robbed the victim of his belongings and later threw him off the car at an isolated spot.
Several police units went on the gang’s trail after the lawyer and policeman lost their belongings to the robbers. Both had been divested of their phones, watches, wallets, cash and identity cards. The breakthrough came on Friday.
“A team led by ACP Kulbir Singh and SHO Chhawla Aishvir Singh received a tipoff that criminals involved in robberies would assemble at Qutub Vihar and proceed to commit a crime. Sub-inspector Gajender Meena and his team were prepared to intercept them in the Goyla Dairy area,” disclosed Anto Alphonse, DCP (Dwarka), on Friday.
The three men were spotted riding a motorcycle and flagged down. They tried to speed away but were overpowered by the police team. The bike turned out to be a stolen one. The cops seized a pistol, knife, watch and mobile phones, apart from the police uniform that they had stolen from their police victim’s bag.