Robbers drive away with car, jewellery

NEW DELHI/FARIDABAD: Four women, including a domestic help, were held captive inside their house in Faridabad for nearly half-an-hour by five armed robbers wearing masks who made away with jewellery worth Rs 35 lakh and a Hyundai i10 car besides Rs 1.5 lakh in cash. The incident that comes days after a similar robbery took place in Gurgaon was reported from the house of Hira Lal, a businessman, in Sector 19 on Wednesday afternoon.Lal was out on a business trip to Rajasthan while his son, Montu, was away at work in Gurgaon at the time of the robbery.
An FIR has been lodged under various sections of the Arms Act and Section 395 of the IPC and investigations are on. Police said Montu's wife, Rashmi, had gone to pick up her son from school and forgot to lock the main door. Robbers had no difficulty in gaining entry to the house. When Rashmi returned, she was allegedly dragged her inside the house while her son waited in the car, clueless.
The cops suspect this to be the handiwork of a gang that had carried out a similar robbery in Gurgaon just four days ago. A senior police officer said that the description of the robbers matches with that of the sketches released by the Gurgaon police after the robbery. "Even their modus operandi seems to be similar,'' said an investigator.
According to Rashmi, five men barged in and held the women members inside the house hostage at gun-point. "They increased the volume of the television and music system so that our screams could not be heard by anyone outside,'' she said.
Family members said the robbers appeared to be around 20-25 years of age. The wore T-shirts and did not call out to each other by name. All of them were reportedly armed with country-made pistols and knives.