The Delhi Police on Saturday claimed to have solved the sensational heist that had taken place on Moolchand flyover with the arrest of 13 persons. One of the arrested includes a juvenile and a Head Constable of Haryana Police.
A Special Cell team has also recovered Rs 4.64 crore from the gang members. The looted amount was around Rs 7.69 crore and it belonged to South Delhi bookie Rajesh Kalra who was named in the matchfixing case by Delhi Police along with former South African captain Hansie Cronje. The daylight robbery on January 28 last had rocked the city. It took around 40 days for a specialised unit like the Special Cell to identify and arrest the real players behind the heist.
Gulzar Ali alias Bhola, Praveen Kumar, Tilakraj lohiya alias Tinku, Satish Tripathi, Joginder alias Johny, Ajay Nagarwal, Sunil Kumar alias Kake, Sandeep Kumar, Shiv Shakti alias Shakti, Pradeep alias Machhender, Prem Singh and Haridas alias Pandey have been arrested in the case so far. A juvenile, who scripted the entire loot, has already been detained in the case. “We have recovered Rs 4.67 crore so far and nabbed 13 people. At least two more accused are still at large. We expect to recover more money in the case. Out of the 13, eight are the ones who executed the robbery while the others received the pilfered cash,” said Special Commissioner (Special Cell) SN Shrivastava.
Asked about whether has the police been able to zero in on the source of such a huge amount of cash or whether any action will be taken against bookie Rajesh Kalra, to whom, the money apparently belonged, Shrivastava said that the issue is still being investigated. He, however, said that they have already intimidated the Income Tax Department in this regard and will also be writing to the Enforcement Directorate (ED). “We are also mulling over whether the accused can be booked under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), 1999,” he added.
Out of those arrested, Shiv Shakti and Pradeep Machhender were the key henchmen who had carried out the heist in which a Honda City was carjacked along with Rs 7.69 crore from South Delhi’s upscale lajpat Nagar area on January 28.