Chandigarh, March 17: A 30-year-old agriculturist from Punjab’s Fazilka district was fired at by two men who took away his Hyundai Verna sedan after an argument over a minor road accident in Sector 35 late at night, around 2.30 am on Friday.
The man, identified only as Vikram of Abohar town, had dropped off a friend in Sector 35 after returning from Elante Mall, and was headed to another friend’s residence in Mohali, where he was putting up for the visit, when a Hyundai Creta SUV hit his vehicle on the inner road near Khukhrain Bhawan, according to police.
“I got out of the car and so did two men from the Creta,” he reportedly told the police. An argument led to a scuffle. “They started assaulting me and when I resisted one of them pulled out a gun and fired two shots. I ran for cover, and one of them sat in my car and drove away towards Mohali,” Vikram told the police.
Police recovered two bullet shells from the spot.
“We have registered a case under section 392 (robbery) of the Indian Penal Code and under the Arms Act,” said inspector Naseeb Singh, station house officer (SHO) of Sector 36.
Vikram told the police that he had bought the car on January 29, and it so far had a temporary number (CH20-T-7855). The vehicle was purchased on January 29 against cash payment.
The robbers also took away his mobile phone, which was later found on the Sector 51-52 road, and a wallet containing Rs 12,000 along with documents.
Police officials working on the case said the modus operandi looks makes it seem the handiwork of Yodha Singh, alias Jodha, 24, who is allegedly involved in a series of such crimes. The crime branch of Chandigarh Police had arrested Jodha on January 6 for three carjackings and robberies at gunpoint in December 2017, but he had escaped from custody when he was being brought back from a court hearing in Faridkot by the UT police on February 6. Police showed his photo to Vikram who said he could not identify the men as it was “too dark”, said an officer not authorised to speak to the media.
This comes three months after the driver of a Maruti Ritz hatchback was robed of it at gunpoint near Kaimbwala; and the same month (December) four men had taken away an SUV from its driver at gunpoint on the road separating Sectors 33 and 45. Here too the SUV bearing a temporary number was hit by another car, a Tata Indica, and then the men in it showed him a pistol before driving away with his SUV. In the third case that month, on December 24, some men kidnapped two eatery workers in Sector 22 and dumped them after robbing them of Rs 25,000.
More recently, Harpreet Singh, son of the owner of the noted Gurdev Studio, was kidnapped in his own car and dumped with it at Elante Mall after robbers took away Rs 3 lakh.
In the most recent case, on February 26, a manager with a Sector-26 restaurant was kidnapped on gunpoint by two car-borne men when he was returning home on his motorcycle just after midnight, and was thrown out after they robbed him of Rs 10,700.
Source Hindustan Times
