Gurgaon: A neighbour who knew a villager had kept Rs 1 crore from a land sale at home allegedly tipped off a gang and helped orchestrate an armed robbery. A few days later, the men stormed the house at gunpoint, tied up the owner, broke open an almirah and a trunk to get to the cash and escape with it.Four of the accused have now been arrested after a hunt spanning Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The arrested men are Sahun Khan (38), a resident of Fatehpur Taga village; Haider Ali alias Imamuddin (28), Mohammad Arif (32) and Moseeb Alam (30), all from villages in UP’s Amroha district.A crime branch team from Sector 30 arrested Sahun in Faridabad and the other three from Moradabad on Oct 8. All four were remanded in four days’ police custody.ACP Varun Kumar Dahiya said Sahun, who lived in the neighbourhood, knew that Abdul Qadeem had sold his land and kept the proceeds at home. Sahun allegedly passed on the information to an acquaintance, Liaqat, and asked him to plan the robbery. Liaqat, who had previously been involved in multiple robberies, then assembled a group of associates.According to police, seven men — Nizam, Tayyub, Rehan, Salim, Haider Ali, Arif and Moseeb — travelled to Fatehpur Taga in an Ertiga on Liaqat’s instructions. Sahun allegedly arranged for two more men to scout Qadeem’s house on a motorcycle and briefed them on its entry and exit routes.Qadeem, a former sarpanch of Shahpur Kalan village, had shifted his belongings from his old house to a new one on Sept 25, a day before the robbery. While he stayed in the new house, his family continued sleeping in the old house nearby.The gang struck around 2am on Sept 26. Five men entered Qadeem’s new house while two others moved away in the car. Qadeem told police that four to five men with their faces covered entered the house around 2.10am, pointed a pistol at his temple and demanded the room keys. They tied his hands behind his back and bound his mouth and legs, leaving him helpless as they searched for the money.Using an iron rod, the robbers broke open an almirah and a trunk. They took around Rs 4 lakh from the almirah and nearly Rs 1 crore from the trunk before fleeing. A robbery case was registered at Dhauj police station under Section 309 of the BNS on Sept 26, based on Qadeem’s complaint.With no CCTV cameras near Qadeem’s house, police had no footage to help identify the robbers or trace their movements. The Sector 30 crime branch relied on technical inputs and human intelligence to establish Sahun’s alleged role and track the others.“There were no CCTV cameras at the spot or in the surrounding areas. The Sector 30 crime branch team used technical and human intelligence to establish Sahun’s role and arrest the other accused. This was not an easy case to crack,” Dahiya said.Police teams conducted raids across Gujarat, Maharashtra and UP before making the arrests. Liaqat and the remaining associates are still being traced. Police are also trying to recover the weapons used in the robbery and establish their source.“We will now recover the weapons used in the crime and investigate the source. We will also try to nab their associates,” Dahiya said.
