Three armed men loot New Friends Colony medical store of ₹1.2L

Just 150m from the police station in south Delhi’s New Friends Colony, three masked men armed with pistols barged into a 24x7 medical store early Tuesday and made off with ₹1.2 lakh cash and cellphones of the two employees present in the store.

Police suspect the three were the same gunmen who were caught on CCTV camera robbing a businessman and his wife at gunpoint inside their Model Town house on Sunday morning. The video of the Model Town robbery was widely circulated on social media. After robbing the couple, the three men had also engaged in a brief shoot-out with the police in Adarsh Nagar before fleeing.

The latest armed robbery in New Friends Colony has once again put the spotlight on the increasing number of robberies and shooting incidents in the capital, which had earlier prompted political parties to demand that the home ministry and lieutenant-governor take stock of law and order. The L-G had also asked all senior police officers to increase patrolling of roads.

Talking about the NFC robbery, deputy commissioner of police (southeast) Chinmoy Biswal said police received a call around 5am about a robbery at Sanjivani Chemist Store in Sarai Jullena . The three men had held the employees at gunpoint and took away the cash and two cellphones before fleeing on a motorcycle.

DCP Biswal said one of the three robbers was wearing a helmet, while the other two had covered their faces with handkerchiefs. “We have recovered the CCTV footage from a camera inside the store. We are also checking the footage from nearby areas to trace the direction that the men took,” the officer said.

Biswal said they have not ruled out the possibility that these are the same men who were spotted in Model Town and Adarsh Nagar. “We have formed multiple teams to trace them,” he said.

The CCTV footage from the shop shows the gunmen holding the employees at gunpoint. One of them is also seen relaxing on a chair while others are seen emptying the cash box. While leaving, the men are seen threatening to shoot the two men twice.

Brij Mohan, who works at the store during the day, said he arrived at 10am and saw policemen swarming the shop. “My colleagues, Shyamal Singh and Jai Singh, were on the night shift. They called up the owner of the store and then reported the matter to the police,” he said.

He said he and the others now fear being on the night duty. Mohan’s colleague Hari Shankar said there is a Sarai Jullena police post near the store. “We don’t have a security guard. Those men had pistols and could have shot the two staffers. Often, there is a PCR van stationed about 50 metres from the store which was probably not there when the robbery took place,” he said.

Vendors and other shopkeepers said this is first time such an incident has taken place in their area.