Cab taken away at gunpoint in midnight carjacking

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, November 12

Three youths take away an Ola cab after threatening its driver with a gun here on Sunday night. They beat up the cab driver before taking away the vehicle from Pakhowal Road around 12:30 am.

The cab driver informed the police, following which a team from the Ludhiana Sadar police station reached the spot. The police have registered a case against unidentified persons.

The cab driver, Bachitar Singh, a resident of Pakhowal Road, said he owned a Maruti Swift Dezire which he had been operating with the Ola cab service for the past two years.

According to Bachitar, someone had booked a cab past night and asked him to reach near the Silver Oak restaurant on Pakhowal Road. “Around 12:30 am, I reached outside the restaurant where a turbaned man told me that he had been waiting for his friends. After a few minutes, two youths arrived there and they started beating me up. After some time, one of them pulled out a gun and pointed it on me. He asked me to hand over the car keys. I handed over them the keys and they fled the scene in the car,” said Bachitar .

Soon after the incident, the police sealed all exit and entry points to the city and launched a massive manhunt to nab the carjackers. As the mobile of the cab driver was left in the car, the police tried to trace its location. According to sources, the police received a tip-off late in the night that a similar cab had been spotted in the New Kudanpuri area. The police teams carried out raids in New Kundanpuri, but to no avail.

The ACP-Gill, Ramandeep Singh, said: “We have been trying to trace the cab on the basis of the signal of the cab driver’s mobile phone. We are hopeful that the carjackers will be traced soon.”