Delhi: 3 held for looting house, holding owner, his mother hostage at gunpoint

NEW DELHI: Three men were arrested on Thursday for allegedly looting cash and jewellery worth lakhs from a house in northeast Delhi's Dayalpur area while holding the owner and his 63-year-old mother hostage at gunpoint, police said.
With the arrest of Md Chand (30), a resident of northeast Delhi's Nehru Vihar and his accomplices -- Javed (31) and Salim (19), both residents of Loni in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad, police claimed to have recovered Rs 3.77 lakhs of looted cash, silver coins and a mobile phone purchased from the robbed money.
Chand knew the victim's family well and was aware of the cash and jewellery kept in his house. He had taken a loan of more than Rs 10 lakh and was being constantly being pressurised by the lenders to pay back, they said.
According to police, five people barged into 39-year-old Delhi University staffer Sunil Sharma's house when he and his mother were alone.
They held the duo hostage at gunpoint and robbed Rs 14.25 lakh cash, around 40 'tola' (one tola is 10gm) gold, 500 grams of silver jewellery and a mobile phone. Sharma's elderly mother also suffered injuries during robbery, they said.
Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Rakesh Paweriya said the police team visited the spot, scanned the CCTV footage, analysed the call detail records and conducted raids at Hapur and Loni to trace the suspects.
"We received information today (Thursday) that the accused would assemble at Chand Bagh here with the looted money and would then escape to their hideouts in Uttar Pradesh. So, our team laid a trap at Wazirabad Road near Chand Bagh and apprehended three of them," he said.
Investigations revealed that Chand was addicted to gambling and had accrued heavy debt. He knew the Sharma family well and on one occasion the victim's sister had told him about the cash and jewellery kept at her brother's house, the officer said.
After hatching the plan to rob Sharma, Chand roped in his friends Javed, Salim and Raju. Javed too was under debt as he had got his sister married recently.
Raju's associates -- Sharik and Raheesh - also joined in and arranged the weapons. While Chand waited outside Sharma's house, the others executed the robbery, the DCP said.
Raju gave Rs 2 lakh to Chand, Rs 1.5 lakh to Javed and Rs 50,000 to Salim from the robbed money and left with the remaining cash and gold items, he said.
Efforts are being made to nab the remaining culprits, he added.