Robbery inspired by ‘Special 26’ movie solved in Ludhiana; accused who posed as IT sleuths caught

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Ludhiana, September 10

In a major breakthrough, Khanna police claimed to have cracked the robbery of Rs 25 lakh in which four robbers posing as IT sleuths had looted cash from the house of a farmer at Rohno Khurd village on September 4 this month.

The arrested accused have been identified as Mohd Halim alias Dr Khan(35) of Malerkotla, Rajnish Kumar Sonu (48) of Zira, Paramdeep Singh Vicky of Partap Nagar, Ludhiana, and Rajiv Kumar Sahni of Abdulla Basti, Ludhiana.

Five accused who are at large include Gurcharan Singh alias Gurchand of Jodhan, Gurpreet Singh of Jhammat, Sukhwinder Singh of Payal, Daljit Singh of Malerkotla and Harpreet Singh of Ludhiana.

Accused Rajiv is in the custody of Bihar police as he was arrested on the tip off from Khanna police and would be brought on transit warrant.

Khanna SSP Dayama Harish Om Parkash and SP Investigation Pragya Jain held a press conference on Saturday to give details of the case.

SSP Dayama said police recovered Rs 11 lakh cash, Innova SUV (PB11CZ6406), BMW (DL1CX5805) and Verito (PB10ED9866) from the accused. Innova was used in the crime while other two cars were owned by the accused.

During investigation it came to light that complainant Sajjan Singh, a farmer, had kept Rs 25 lakhs at home to buy some land and one of the accused Gurcharan, who was known to Sajjan, was aware about the presence of cash in the house, SSP Dayama informed.

Gurcharan hatched a conspiracy and he enrolled his nephew Gurpreet and others in the planning.  Accused also did recce of the house.

Out of nine accused, five who executed the robbery were Mohd Halim, Daljit, Paramdeep, Rajnish and Rajiv. They wore a formal dress (grey trousers with white shirts) and also carried fake ID cards of IT department to look like IT officers during the robbery, SP Investigation Pragya said.

SP Pragya said Rajnish, Paramdeep, and Gurcharan had a notorious past as cases of fraud and drug peddling were already registered against them.

Sources said one of the accused, Harpreet, was a dismissed IT officer and he was the one who gave the idea of committing robbery by posing as IT officers.