Crowd gathers after police had an encounter with a gangster at Palam Vihar in Gurgaon. (PTI Image)
A gunbattle took place in the heart of Delhi's suburb Gurgaon. It all began at 9.45 on Friday night when five armed men barged into the house of Anoop Chaturvedi, a senior executive in an automobile major.
They first overpowered his son, who had just returned from work, and then took the rest of the family hostage.
"They held us hostage at gunpoint, took us to the first floor, and repeatedly asked us where the valuables were kept," said Anoop.
Three men then escaped in a car stolen from the house but not before one of the family members managed to call the police. For the next one hour, the remaining attackers barricaded themselves with their hostages on the first floor. Special commandos then surrounded the house, storming it soon after and killing the two hostage takers.
"We've not yet been able to identify the men. Post-mortems of the two dead men will be conducted and we're trying to identify and nab the other three men who're on the run. The family has told us that the men were speaking a different dialect. It seems they could be migrants," said Gurgaon police commissioner S S Deswal.
All five members of the family were rescued safely, but residents of Gurgaon are shaken.
The police claim their success lies in rescuing all members of the family. But the fact remains that this audacious case of robbery where an entire family was taken hostage has left area residents quite unnerved and only added to the growing sense of insecurity in Gurgaon.