Gold worth ₹22 lacs, combat dresses, dummy weapons, cash recovered
August 24: Police in Srinagar have busted a gang by arresting 10 persons involved in burglary, extortion and impersonating as security forces by donning combat uniforms and dummy weapons.
On 05/05/2021, PS Parimpora received a written complaint from Mohd Maqbool Bhat resident of Khawaja Bagh Maloora to the effect that during the intervening night some 6-8 unidentified gunmen wearing combat dress barged into his residential house and looted jewellery, cash & mobile phone. Accordingly a case vide FIR No. 107/2021 under relevant sections of law was registered and investigation taken up. Moreover, on 08/07/2021 another complainant Mohd Rafiq Ahangar resident of Hokarsar Umerabad lodged a complaint to the effect that during the intervening night some 4-6 unidentified gunmen wearing combat dresses entered into his house and looted jewellery and cash. In this regard, another case vide FIR No. 203/2021 under relevant sections of law was registered and investigation taken up.
Accordingly, a special investigation team led by SHO PS Parimpora under the close supervision of SDPO West Shri Jan Muzaffar-JKPS and SP City West Shri Perbeet Singh-JKPS was constituted to probe, trace and arrest the accused involved in the commission of crime.
During the course of investigation, officers taking assistance of modern techniques and leads from technical evidences learnt about the involvement of a gang of 10 accused persons identified as, Tariq Ahmad Rather son of Ghulam Mohammad Rather resident of Tangpora A/P Khan Mohalla Pati Shalabugh, Barkat Husain Son of Ghulam Rasool Hajam resident of Mirgund Pattan, Mohammad Yousuf Sheikh son of Abdul Rehman Sheikh resident of Khan Sahib Budgam, Shahbaz Ahmad Laway son of Mohammad Afzal Laway resident of Sutlan Pora Pattan, Manzoor Ahmad Waza son of Abdul Aziz Waza resident of Matipora Pattan, Altaf Ahmad Guroo son of Abdul Khaliq Guroo resident of Maloora, Farooq Ahmad Lone son of Abli Lone resident of Khan Sahib Budgam, Mohammad Maqbool Laway son of Ghulam Mohammad resident of Sultan Pora Pattan, Jan Mohd Shiekh son of Mohd Yousuf Shiekh resident of Raithan Check Budgam and Bilal Ahmad Kumar son of Sona Ullah Kumar resident of Sanoor Kalipora Magam Budgam.
Preliminary investigation also revealed that the burglars would first reccee the suspected areas to find out the target houses invariably the ones where marriage ceremony would be scheduled in near future. They had adopted a novel way in which they would don army camouflage uniform and enter into the houses with dummy pistols and assault rifles on the pretext of cordon and search. When they got ingress into the victim/target houses, they would lock the family in one room, snatch their mobile phones and during search, loot the valuable gold items and cash.
Accordingly, the accused persons were arrested and during questioning they confessed about their involvement in the commission of crime. Upon their disclosure, police parties raided different locations and successfully recovered gold items worth ₹22 lacs, cash to the amount of ₹3.30lacs and a vehicle worth ₹2lacs purchased out of the stolen property. Besides, camouflage uniforms, belts, boots and caps used to commit the crime along with 5 dummy AK-47, 4 dummy Pistols, iron rods were also recovered.