Three men were arrested on Thursday for allegedly looting cash and jewellery. (Representational)
Three men were arrested on Thursday for allegedly looting cash and jewellery worth lakhs from a house in northeast Delh while holding the owner and his 63-year-old mother hostage at gunpoint, police said.
According to police, five people barged into 39-year-old Delhi University staffer Sunil Sharma's house when he and his mother were alone.
The police has arrested Md Chand (30), a resident of northeast Delhi's Nehru Vihar, and his accomplices -- Javed (31) and Salim (19), both residents of Loni in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad.
The police has also claimed to have recovered Rs 3.77 lakhs of looted cash, silver coins and a mobile phone purchased from the robbed money.
Chand knew the victim's family well and was aware of the cash and jewellery kept in his house. He had taken a loan of more than Rs 10 lakh and was being constantly being pressurised by the lenders to pay back, they said.
They held the duo hostage at gunpoint and robbed Rs 14.25 lakh cash, around 40 "tola" (one tola is 10 gm) gold, 500 grams of silver jewellery and a mobile phone. Sharma''s elderly mother also suffered injuries during robbery, they said.
Police official Rakesh Paweriya said the police team visited the spot, scanned the CCTV footage, analysed the call detail records and conducted raids at Hapur and Loni to trace the suspects.
"We received information today (Thursday) that the accused would assemble at Chand Bagh here with the looted money and would then escape to their hideouts in Uttar Pradesh. So, our team laid a trap at Wazirabad Road near Chand Bagh and apprehended three of them," he said.