2 arrested for robbing senior citizen's house

Two men were arrested for allegedly robbing a 78-year-old man's house and threatening a maid servant following she jumped to death from the window to save herself in Karol Bagh, police said today.

The accused were identified as Vinay Kumar (32) and Lilu Pal, they added.

Avinash Chander Bhalla (78) resides in Karol Bagh. Hariram (48) was working as a servant in his house for the last 30 years. The servant told police that Bhalla stayed with his wife Bulbul while their daughter Geetanjali lived in Singapore.

On May 30, Bulbul and Geetanjali, who was in India, were out with their driver and their maid servant came for work.

While Hariram was giving medicine to Bhalla, the doorbell rang. When he opened the door, four unidentified persons entered the house forcefully by pushing him. Two of them whipped out pistols and one of them pointed the pistol towards Hariram, police said.

They allegedly beat him and took him to the bedroom, where Bhalla was present. They also beat the elderly man and demanded keys of their cupboard. When Bhalla told them that the keys were taken by his wife, they started ransacking the house.

They allegedly beat him with a stick and also caught the maid servant and tied her with a dupatta and tapes and kept her hostage in the bedroom along with the elderly man, they added.

They broke open the cupboard in the room and took out valuables. They took Hariram to second floor of the house and tied him there.

They allegedly threatened to kill her if she made any noise. She managed to enter the attached bathroom and locked herself inside. She jumped from the window of the first floor and died, police said.

Later, it was learnt that the accused took a pair of gold earnings, two diamond rings, a mobile phone, an I-pod and Rs 12,000 from the house.

Subsequently, police arrested the two accused from near the Ajmeri Gate flyover, New Delhi Railway Station yesterday.

During interrogation, Vinay revealed while he was working in the Jhilmil Colony, he came in contact with one Lal Bahadur. He left the job, but remained in touch with Bahadur.

As he was in need of money, he asked Bahadur to find some ways to earn money who told him that one of his friends Raju, who worked in a bungalow had informed him that in the second portion of the bungalow, an elderly couple was residing alone, police said.

They hatched a conspiracy to rob them with Raju. Later, they also included Lilu, a water supplier of the area and some other persons, in the conspiracy.

On May 30, all of them gathered and four of them -- Vinay, Lilu and two others entered the house with two pistols while five persons remained outside the bungalow to keep an eye, said Mandeep Singh Randhawa, joint commissioner of police (Central).