Executive hitches a cab ride, robbed; 25th to be targeted on Gurugram road in 2019

GURUGRAM: A BPO executive was robbed by four men who offered him a lift in their car from Gurgaon-Faridabad road on Saturday evening. Ballabhgarh resident Shivam Sharma, whose office is located in Udyog Vihar, told police he was offered lift by the gang while he was looking for transportation to reach his home on Saturday evening.

A car with a commercial number with three passengers stopped near him. When he asked for a drop till Faridabad , the driver asked him to get inside. But after the car had crossed the toll plaza on Gurgaon-Faridabad road, the accused held him hostage at gunpoint and snatched his wallet and ATM card. They forced him to share the ATM password and later withdraw around Rs 8,000 from his account. They dumped him near Neelam Chowk in Faridabad. A case was registered on Sunday under Section 379A (snatching) at DLF 1 police station against unknown persons.

Incidents of lift-and-loot are on the rise, with 25 cases reported in 2019 alone. And 15 such cases were reported in the last two months of 2018. Gurgaon police has recently stationed cops at various important junctions to discourage commuters from boarding such cabs, but in the absence of proper transport facilities, they still end up availing shared rides in these cabs.

Two days back, Gurgaon police had arrested Sumit Kumar (26), who was involved in multiple cases of lift-and-loot across the NCR. Cops said he had been to different jails in Delhi-NCR. He is considered the mastermind of Gurgaon’s lift-and-loot gang.

Sumit, who was last in Delhi’s Tihar Jail for 10 months, was released on January 10, and immediately went back to lift-and-loot. The history sheeter was first arrested in an extortion case in Ghaziabad when he was just 19. “He got in touch with older gangs in jail and formed his own afterwards. Once released, he started targeting people in Noida, Ghaziabad and Delhi,” said assistant commissioner of police (crime) Shamsher Singh.