Robbery at finance firm in Ghaziabad (Reissuing with corrected name)

Three unidentified armed robbers looted cash and jewellery worth over Rs.27 lakh from Muthoothu Mini here.

The incident occurred around 4.00 p.m. Wednesday at Rakesh Marg branch under Sihani Gate police station.

It was erroneously reported that the incident took place at a branch of Muthoot Finance company, while the actual incident took place at Muthoothu Mini, which is not related to Muthoot Finance.

Police said that three robbers armed with pistols reached the company office. Two of them entered the office and said they wanted to take loan against their gold ornaments. When cashier Abid Hussain was weighing their gold, they trained their pistols at him and asked him to surrender all the cash and gold.

When he resisted, they hit the cashier on his head with the pistol butt and threatened to shoot the other staff. When another employee, Narendra Kumar, came to Abid's help, he too was assaulted.

Threatening all staff members, the robbers escaped with all the gold and other jewellery and cash from the company chest.

The locals saw three men running with the loot and called the police.

The cashier was rushed to hospital where he was discharged after first aid.

"The company had not installed the CCTV camera at the office and at that time there was no guard, so the criminals had the direct access up to cashier without frisking. The cashier has told us that gold worth about Rs.25 lakh and cash of Rs.1.60 lakh have been looted," said Superintendent of Police (City) Shiv Hari Meena.