SENSATIONAL DAYLIGHT ARMED DACOITY IN A JEWELRY SHOP CRACKED THREE ACCUSED INCLUDING THE MOTHER-CONSPIRATOR CUM RECIEVER ARRESTED

The team of AATS, South District has cracked the sensational daylight robbery cum dacoity committed by armed assailants in a jewelry shop situated in Malviya Nagar Main Market reported on 15/06/2017 and have arrested three accused persons namely (1) Azeem, 26 yrs, r/o District Bijnor, UP, (2) Dilshad Mohammad, 26 yrs, r/o District Bijnor, UP and (3) Saurabh Verma, 24 yrs, r/o District Amroha, UP.

Brief Facts: On 15/06/17, a PCR call was received in PS Malviya Nagar at 1213 hrs regarding an incident of robbery in a jewelry shop located at M-1, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi. Seeing the gravity of the call, DCP/South, Addl. DCP/South, ACP Hauz Khas, ACP/Operations along with staff also rushed to the spot. The complainant Shri Promod Jain r/o Malviya Nagar, New Delhi reported that he has been running a jewelry shop for the last 37 years. On 15/06/2017, at about 1200 hrs, when he was present alone in his shop, four persons, aged between 25-35 years, all wearing helmets, two of them carrying firearms while the other two carrying long bladed meat choppers, entered his shop and after threatening him at gun and knife points, picked up all the jewelry articles which were displayed in the showcases. The tentative value of the robbed articles was stated to be between Rs. 60-65 lakhs. The assailants had stuffed the jewelry in two white cement bags which they were carrying and escaped. While leaving the shop, they also took away the cell phone of the complainant. The complainant stated that though he could not see the face of any of the assailants clearly as they kept wearing their helmets, which were shiny and probably newly purchased, he could identify them by their built and other parameters if produced before him. On this report, case FIR No. 229/2017, u/ss. 392/34 IPC, PS Malviya Nagar was registered and investigation was taken up. Seeing the gravity of the incident, all teams of South District including Special Staff, AATS and STF along with the Police Station staff were immediately pressed into action. The finger print experts lifted a total of 06 chance prints and 02 palm prints from the spot which were sent for analysis and comparison with data base of Finger Print Bureaus in Delhi as well as Uttar Pradesh.

Investigation & Efforts: To proceed with investigation, several task specific teams were formed which started working on a 24×7 basis to work out this sensitive crime. Four teams started scouting CCTV footages from the area to reconstruct the sequence of the crime. It was revealed that there were five accused persons, three on a white color TVS apache and two on a blue color TVS Apache motorcycle, who had committed the crime. Footages from 8 different CCTV systems, located within about 2 kms from the spot of occurrence, were collected and analyzed. The relevant footages were sent to a private forensic lab for enhancement of picture quality and as a result, the number plates of both the TVS Apache motorcycles were reconstructed. The white colored bike was seen bearing a registration number of Jyotiba Phule Nagar (Amroha) of West UP. A team rushed to Amroha to verify this lead which found that the registration number belonged to a Honda Splendor motorcycle and not TVS Apache and the same was found available with its registered owner. Seeing the use of a fake number plate belonging to Village Dhanora, Amroha, the entire village was scanned to find out if there could be any link of the criminals who have committed this crime in Delhi with this village or the wider Western UP area. In this exercise, additional teams from Special Staff were also dispatched, various locals of Dhanora, who have criminal records against their names and have also been arrested for various crimes in Delhi in past were verified and interrogated.

Immediately after the incident, major gold financiers and NBFCs like Muthoot Finance, Fincorps IIFL and Mannapuram Gold etc. were alerted to report the pawning of any gold jewelry which carries the mark of 'JJC' (standing for Jain Jewelry Corner).

The relevant CCTV footages established that the assailants had carried out a relaxed recce of the target shop for about half an hour before actually striking. After the incident, they took a congested inner-lane route to escape which is very difficult to understand for a newcomer to the area. After taking these inner colony routes, the assailants emerged at Savitri Nagar, a part of Malviya Nagar jurisdiction and finally, reached the Outer Ring Road from South Soami Nagar side. This exit on a arterial road made them available four possible exit routes - towards IIT and onwards on the Outer Ring Roda, towards August Kranti Marg, back towards Malviya Nagar and towards Nehru Place and onwards. The wider area CCTV scan revealed that the assailants had taken a U-Turn under the Panchsheel flyover but thereafter, their track was lost.

Further, to assess if the assailants had left Delhi after committing the crime, the CCTV footages of State borders like Sonia Vihar Pushta, Khajoori Khas border, Loni Gol Chakkar, Harsh Vihar, Seemapuri, Surya Nagar, Anand Vihar, NH 24, Badarpur and Pul Prahladpur were also checked but to no clue. In the same sequence, the CCTV footages of all nearby fuel stations were checked to find out if the assailants had stopped over at any of them to refuel. All the roadside as well as regular dealers and retailers of helmets have been visited to find out if the helmets worn by the assailants were purchased from there. 08 roadside vendors were traced who sell exactly the same helmets as seen in the CCTV footages but they failed to provide any concrete and actionable information.

The local police started extensive exercise of rounding up and questioning all the registered BCs of the area including robbers, snatchers etc. and, in the process, suspects from Karol Bagh, Khajoori Khas and Madangir in Delhi and Bijnor, Khurja, Bulandshahar and Amroha in UP were interrogated.

The reconstructed number plate of the blue color TVS Apache revealed the number plate as DL-2SN-9558. It was learnt that this motorcycle had been reported as stolen from the area of PS Jamia Nagar on 11/06/2017 regarding which an e-FIR No. 17905/17 had been registered by its owner. Ground level verification of all TVS Apache Motorcycles (White and Blue color) under two heads - All such motorcycles registered in Delhi (13,300 white in color and 4,830 blue in color) and all such motorcycles reported stolen from various Police Stations of Delhi between 01/05/2017 and 15/06/2017 - total 99 TVS Apache stolen out of which, 32 are white in color and 05 are blue in color, was taken up by three dedicated teams with special focus on the one stolen from Jamia Nagar area.


Breakthrough and arrest: The team of AATS/South District had activated multiple sources and specifically tasked them to be on the lookout for number plate DL-2SN-9558 on a blue color TVS Apache motorcycle. On 26/06/2017, in afternoon hours, one of the deployed sources informed Inspector Richchpal Singh, I/c AATS/SD, that a blue color TVS Apache motorcycle, bearing the said number plate, was seen standing inconspicuously in a narrow alley of Gali No. 1, Okhla Vihar, near Abul Fazl Enclave, Jamia Nagar, South East Delhi. Alerted by this critical input, a team of AATS/SD, led by Inspector Richchpal Singh under the supervision of Shri Palwinder Singh Chehel, ACP/Operations, South District conducted a discreet recce of the place where this motorcycle was parked. It appeared that it had not been used for over a week as it was covered with dust and dirt.

By forming four teams to lay a discreet and attentive watch over the motorcycle in two hourly shifts, the team of AATS/SD waited overnight and till the early morning of 27/06/2017 when, at about 0900 hrs, one person was spotted approaching the bike cautiously. The suspect took out a cloth to wipe it clean and then, as he started the engine to ride away, he was professionally intercepted and secured. The spot interrogation of this suspect revealed his identity as Azeem, 26 yrs, s/o Ateeq Ahmad, r/o Village District Bijnor, UP. When questioned about the papers of the Apache he was about to drive away, he attempted misleading the team but, with deft professional questioning, soon broke down and disclosed of his involvement in the dacoity committed at Jain Jewelry Corner, Malviya Nagar. Accused Azeem then led to a second floor house located in Gali No. 6, Shaheen Bagh, where the team found two more accused namely Dilshad Mohammad, 26 yrs, s/o Mohammad Ramzani, r/o District Bijnor, UP and Saurabh Verma, 24 yrs, s/o Harikrishan Varma, r/o District Amroha, UP. All the three were apprehended and from the said room, 2 firearms with 6 live cartridges, one meat chopper, 5 helmets worn by the assailants on the day of the incident and gold and diamond jewelry along with some loose precious and semi precious stones were recovered from their possession.

Interrogation: The preliminary interrogation of the arrested accused has revealed that the entire conspiracy was hatched by one Shamshad, resident of Bijnore, who has been living in Hauz Rani, Malviya Nagar, for a long time and works under the cover of a carpenter. Under this cover, Shamshad does a recce of potential targets and once a suitable target is zeroed in, he assembles a team of robbers from his locally known criminals of West Uttar Pradesh to execute the task. The novel feature of Shamshad's functioning has been reported to be that he always assembles a new team for orchestrating a fresh crime. In the instant case, Shamshad contacted one Abid, who is a resident of his own native Village in Bijnor and is a known robber and thereafter, one by one, a total of 5 criminals namely Azeem (arrested), Dilshad (arrested), Abid (absconding), Rizwan (absconding) and Shabbu (absconding) was assembled. All five are native of various Villages of Bijnor District of Western Uttar Pradesh. Accused Dilshad has been previously involved in FIR No. 22/2008, u/ss. 392/397/34 IPC of PS Jamuna Vihar, Gokulpuri where his co-accused was one Fazlu Rehman, a dreaded gangster cum BC of Trans-Yamuna area who is currently running in judicial custody in other cases. Dilshad was subsequently also involved in another case of 2008 which involved attempt to murder police officers registered in PS Jamuna Vihar, Gokulpuri. Absconding accused Shabbu, Rizwan and Abid have several cases of robbery/dacoity registered against them in Uttar Pradesh as per their own narration, the details' of which are being collected. Accused Abid has earlier been booked under the Gangster Act by UP Police vide FIR No. 121/09 of PS Chandpur, District Bijnor, UP. As The five needed money to take up an accommodation in Delhi from where they could study their target closely and monitor his movements. They discussed this plan with Saurabh Varma, a goldsmith cum receiver, who has been their long term financier in the world of crime. Once Saurabh was convinced of the potential exploits of the crime, he financed their stay in Delhi by giving them cash money. Absconding accused Abid, who works under the cover of a painter, has been living with his family in Gali No. 8, Shaheen Bagh, South East Delhi. He arranged for a rented accommodation at Gali No. 6, Shaheen Bagh where the remaining group assembled about three weeks ago and started making preparations for the dacoity. Over the next three weeks, various recce missions were undertaken, singularly as well as in groups. To execute the crime, the criminals arranged weapons from an associate namely Rashid, resident of Jaitpur, South East Delhi and permanent resident of Muzaffarnagar, UP. Further, two bikes were stolen, the blue Apache by Dilshad and the white Apache by absconding accused Abid.

On the fateful day, arrested accused Dilshad and Azeem were driving the blue Apache while absconding accused Abid, Shabbu and Rizwaan were on the white Apache. After committing the crime, they returned to their rented hideout in Shaheen Bagh and after changing their cloths, Dilshad parked his blue Apache in Gali No. 1, Okhla Vihar while Abid parked his white Apache at another location, which is yet to be traced. After leaving their helmets and clothing behind, they called for a taxi and went straight with the booty to accused Saurabh Varma where the robbed articles were handed over to him for onward disposal.

After celebrating Eid on 26/06/2017, accused Dilshad and Azeem returned to Delhi, to vacate the room taken on rent and to dispose off the clothing articles, helmets and weapons which they had left behind. They had intended to ride back to their Village on the blue Apache as they were confident that no one was after their trail. Accused Saurabh, being the most cunning of them all, had come along with some of the jewelry articles and the precious and semi precious stones extracted from the booty handed over to him by his criminal associates and regarding which he had told them that they were purely ornamental, artificial and hence of no value, to dispose them in Delhi's gold and diamond market contacts for exclusive profit. He ran out of his luck when he was apprehended by police while having breakfast with his arrested associates. Had the team been any late, he would have left them for the gold and diamond markets of Delhi for making a quick buck of a portion of the robbed articles, primarily precious and semi precious stones. Efforts are being made to arrest the remaining accused involved in the crime including the prime orchestrator Shamshad and of recovering the remaining robbed property. The criminal history details of the arrested as well as absconding accused are being collected and verified.