A daring dacoity was committed last night in a petrol pump located in the West of NH 98 in Chhaterpur barely two hundred metres away from the Chhaterpur police station where youths numbering 11 to 12 looted cash box of the petrol pump with Rs 2.5 lakh
Youths in jungle warfare uniform and boot and armed with kattas and other weapons reached the petrol pump around 7.30 last night and inquired about its owner who said the owner was not around while the fact was that the man who said the owner was not around was himself the owner Uma Kant Prasad Jaiswal.
The armed youths first attempted to break open the cash box but on failure, took away the cash box. Jaiswal claimed that the looted cash box was carrying 2.50 lakhs coming from the sale of petrol and diesel. DSP Chhaterpur Sanjay Kumar said the youths who did this crime were in the age group of 20 to 22 and were short figured in height too.
There are some roadside hotels opposite this petrol pump and these people did see 11 to 12 youths in jungle warfare whom they thought to be of excise people or police making raid and search for illicit liquor and these hotel people just got engaged in removing their own stock of illicit liquor from their complex said sources.
Sources said Palamu police had in the past weeks launched an all out war against illicit bootleggers and this confusion was all due to this.
DSP Kumar conceded that this group of youths may have formed outfits on their own but said that it is a matter of investigation.