Gang of 7 arrested on their way to Shirdi pilgrimage

New Delhi: A gang of robbers who were on their way to offer prayers at Shirdi Temple after looting cash from a collection agent were arrested by the police from Maharashtra. The police has arrested seven members of the gang.

The arrested have been identified as Sunil (27), Firoz (21), Santosh (22), Manish (22), Ajay Thakur (35), Vasudev Ghosh (55), and Ajit Kumar (39).

The gang leader, Ajay Thakur, used to work as a gas cylinder vendor in a gas agency. In the past couple of months, he misappropriated `2 lakhs (approx) from the account of the gas agency and was therefore fired from his job. Thereafter, he promised to return the pending dues to the agency.

Meanwhile, Ajay briefed his associates about the transfer of cash from the gas agency by the collection agent. The accused persons made recce before the commission of the offence and kept watch on the movement of the victim. After two failed attempts, they finally robbed `4.66 lakhs from the cash collector on their third attempt on March 15.

During investigation, the CCTV footages of the place of incident were scrutinised. In one of the footages, the accused persons were seen running in the nearby street along with the robbed bag.

On the basis of a tip-off and after scrutiny of CCTV footages, one Sunil was identified. On March 16, he was arrested and `36,000 was recovered from his possession. On his instance three others, namely Firoz, Santosh, and Manish, were also arrested.

“During interrogation, they disclosed that two of their other associates, Ajay and Vasudev, had gone to Shirdi (Maharastra). Hence, a team was immediately dispatched to Maharashtra and with the help of Railway police, accused Ajay and Vasudev were arrested. The police recovered `4.40 lakhs from their possession. A two-wheeler, which was purchased with the robbed amount, was recovered on the instance of Ajay. Later, another accused, namely Ajit Kumar, was also arrested from Sangam Vihar,” said DCP (Southeast district) Chimoy Biswal.