MBA degree holder among three held for robbery

An MBA degree holder was among three people arrested for involvement in inter-state robberies after keeping the victims' families hostage at gunpoint, police said Friday.

Shahbaz Ahmed Chaudhary, 23, Upender Gupta, 29, and Gautam Koli, 21, were arrested from Delhi's Basai Darapur area Wednesday on a tip-off.

During interrogation, the accused revealed that they had robbed people five times, in Delhi and Noida in Uttar Pradesh, within the national capital region.

"The accused disclosed that after making a reconnaissance of a house they could rob, they would approach residents in a friendly manner," Deputy Commissioner of Police Gnana Sambandan said.

"They would approach the victim's house with a box of sweets, on the pretext of extending an invitation," Sambandan said, and make all enquiries necessary to extract information about how many people lived in the house, and assess when might be a good time to strike.

"They would rob the house after keeping those living within it hostage, at gunpoint," the officer said.

"A week ago, they had robbed a resident of west Delhi's Pitampura. When the victim tried to resist the robbery, they beat him up. They held his family hostage at gunpoint," the officer said.

Chaudhary is a Delhi University graduate; Gupta, who has worked with New Delhi Power Limited's enforcement department, holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree.