Police hunt for four men in back-to-back robberies, murder

New Delhi: A silver-colour Santro bearing number 7702 kept Delhi Police on its toes as the car’s occupants, at least four, committed two robberies and attempted two more in four districts in the capital within an hour on early Tuesday. Nobody has been arrested.
The accused men first shot a truck driver and then robbed him in west Delhi, following which they tried to steal the battery of an e-rickshaw in northwest Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh.The gang then targeted a rider on an auto near IP Estate in central Delhi and finally a man near BRT in south Delhi. The gang was unsuccessful in Shalimar Bagh and south Delhi.
The accused were desperate for money and attacked whoever came their way, said sources. Near ESI Hospital in west Delhi’s Basai Darapur, the 50-year-old truck driver was shot and the men fled with his phone and Rs 5,000 cash around 3am. A police team rushed Lakhmi Chand, a resident of Palwal, to Guru Gobind Singh Hospital where he was declared dead. “A case of murder was registered and medical examinations revealed he had been shot in the waist,” said Urvija Goel, DCP (west).
The police team questioned the truck’s helper, who said three-four men approached Chand in a Santro. Two of them came out of the car and shot Chand dead before robbing him.
The accused soon entered interior lanes of Shalimar Bagh and tried to steal the battery of an e-rickshaw, but the owner woke up due to the commotion. The accused fired and fled. Luckily the bullet did not hit anybody.
The police control room then received a call from a man who was going home in an auto after returning from Himachal Pradesh. The men waylaid the auto and, as two men threatened the victim, he gave them his wallet, mobile phone and laptop. The gang’s next target was a vehicle on BRT near Defence Colony, but the beacon light of a patrolling vehicle scared them and they fled.