Carjacking outside Elante mall

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

In a carjacking incident, two youths, believed to be in their early twenties, forcibly took away a white Honda City car at gunpoint from a woman outside Elante Mall, hardly 200 metres from the Industrial Area police station on Friday evening.

The victim, Nidhi, said she had gone to attend a Teej party with her friend at a hotel in Zirakpur. Since her husband was already at Elante, Nidhi asked her friend to drop her outside the mall. “It was my friend’s car, but I drove back from Zirakpur,” she said.

The victim stopped the car near Gate No. 3 and as she got down from the car, a pedestrian came there and pointed a gun at her. “I screamed after which my friend also got down from the car. While the accused carrying the gun sat on the driver’s seat, his accomplice sat on the next seat. The duo then sped away from the spot,” she said.

Nidhi said while getting down from the car, she managed to take her purse. The accused were short statured, she told the police.

The incident took place around 7.45 pm after which the police were informed, who rushed to the spot. The police asked the mall management to provide the footage of CCTV cameras installed near Gate No. 3 so that they could get vital clues.

The victim’s husband, Gurinderpreet Singh, who is a businessman, said he was shocked that the miscreants managed to take away the car from outside Elante Mall in full public view.

The police have registered a case of robbery at the Industrial Area police station.

Police left red-faced

The gunpoint robbery, that too a few days before Independence Day when the police claim to have intensified patrolling in the city, has left the UT police red-faced. 

Kidnapped bizman was released at same spot 

In an incident reported in February this year, three miscreants had kidnapped a businessman in his Mercedes SUV at gunpoint from Sector 9 and released him near Gate No. 3 of Elante Mall after taking a ransom of Rs 3 lakh before fleeing with his SUV, which was later found abandoned near Sector 31.