Robbers kill 2 at Patiala highway petrol station, flee with Rs 11,000

Aman Sood 

Tribune News Service

Patiala, June 18

Three robbers on a bike shot dead two persons at a petrol station on the Patiala-Rajpura highway late Sunday night and decamped with Rs 11,000. 

    The victims were identified as canter driver and part-time employee Kuldeep Singh and Devinder Singh of Alampur village, who was having dinner at a nearby dhaba. He was shot as he tried to stop the fleeing robbers. 

Even though the incident was captured on CCTV cameras, the police are yet to trace the robbers. Two of them, armed with a pistol and a country-made revolver, fled towards Rajpura, crossing a toll plaza.  Sources said two of the three entered Patiala via the nearby toll plaza, as seen in the camera. “This means the third attacker may have joined them just before the crime.” Curiously, one of the robbers visited the petrol station an hour before the crime.

The bike (Bullet) used in the crime may have been stolen from outside Punjabi University.

Having collected Rs 6,000 from fellow workers, Kuldeep Singh was on his cellphone when he was approached by the robbers, who probably mistook him for the cash manager. They asked him to hand over the money. “Not realising he was being robbed, he resisted. One of the robbers fired at him, and took out the cash from his pocket. Terrified, the other employees also handed over Rs 5,000 that they had with them.

 “As the robbers were fleeing, Devinder Singh ran towards them and raised an alarm. He too was shot,” said an official who is part of the investigating team. Both victims were declared “brought dead” by doctors. “We are closely monitoring the case,” Patiala SP (Investigation) Harwinder Virk said.

Rising crime graph

• In May 2017, a bank cash van was robbed of Rs 1.33 crore at the Banur highway; the case was cracked with the arrest of three gangsters  but the Patiala cops are yet to recover the cash
• Patiala police are yet to solve the kidnapping of a toddler by a woman from Mata Kaushalya Hospital in January this year
• There has been no breakthrough in the murder case of ex-serviceman Darshan Singh who was attacked at his residence in Gazipur village in Samana four months ago
• Snatching incidents in Patiala have been on the rise with a senior officer targeted recently