The police have apprehended a conman who had been involved in a series of incidents of theft and robbery of elderly people in the State Capital. The culprit used to enter the homes introducing himself as a salesman, strike conversation with lonely senior citizens, drug them and then rob them. The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Dehradun Pushpak Jyoti informed the newsmen here on Sunday that in the wake of many incidents of similar nature in the city, a police team was constituted. The team on the basis of information provided by affected people made a sketch of the accused.
On the basis of the sketch and vital leads provided by informers, the team arrested one Hardeep Chabra, a resident of Saharanpur, on Saturday and recovered the material and jewellery looted by him. The culprit has accepted his involvement in four past incidents of loot in the city. Jyoti said the modus operandi of the culprit was simple, he used to do a recce of the people who are elderly and live alone. The accused used to trap the unsuspecting elders in his talks and when they offered him some tea or other drinks he used to cleverly add sleep inducing drugs in the drink of these people and decamp with valuable things.
The accused told police that he used to tactfully distract the attention of elderly and add sleeping pills in drinks. Hardeep Chabra accepted his involvement in the incidents of loot in Sailok Colony on October 15 last year when he drugged a couple after he entered the house on the pretext of checking their gas burner.
He employed similar trick successfully on December 19 last year in Brahmanwala area of the city. The culprit was successful in a big heist in Nehru Colony on April 13 when he pretended before an elderly couple that his health is not good, when the couple offered him a cup of tea in good faith, he drugged them and fled with the jewellery and other valuable things.
In Basant Vihar area on April 21, two elderly sisters were drugged by him when he entered their house in pretext of linking their domestic gas connection with Adhar card. The SSP informed that the accused is already named in 13 criminal cases. The police team consisted of SHO Basant Vihar, Pradeep Chauhan and Sub Inspector (SI) DS Bisht and SI Pradeep Rawat.