Supervisor among 7 held for robbery in Mahagun corporate office in Noida

With the arrest of seven persons, Noida Police Saturday claimed to have cracked the sensational robbery at a corporate office here last month in which the accused had decamped with a vault containing Rs 35 lakh and documents after holding the security guards hostage.

Those arrested include a supervisor of the company, Mahahun Corporate, and Rs 8 lakh has been recovered,Additional Director General (ADG) of the Meerut zone Prashant Kumar told reporters along with Noida Police chief Vaibhav Krishna.

The sensational robbery took place on the intervening night of April 27 and 28 following which an FIR was registered at the Phase 3 police station against unidentified suspects.

Those arrested have been identified as Uday Pratap Singh, Gajraj Jatav and his wife Seema, Sachin Kumar Vivek Pal, Lalit Kumar and Om Prakash, Kumar said, in a rare media appearance for a case taking place in Noida.

According to police, Uday wanted to start independent work of data entry along with Vivek and Sachin and needed some money for it. He had contacted Lalit, who worked as a supervisor at the Mahagun office in Sector 63.

"Last month, Lalit told him for the past 3-4 days the Mahagun company people were keeping money in the vault as they could not transport huge amount of cash because of imposed under the model code of conduct due to the Lok Sabha election in place and suggested they could try taking that money easily," police said.

Vivek, who worked at a company in A block of Sector 63, did a recce of the area near the Mahagun office and found that a company that was located behind it was not functioning and there was a way to cross over into the Mahagun office from the backside that would also enable them not to come in front of the security guards deployed along the front gate, police said.

"The accused had planned to carry out the robbery on the night of April 13 and 14 but for some reasons they could not carry it out. Finally, on the night of April 27and 28 they broke into the office from the backside and uncounted security guard who was overpowered by them and taken to the basement of the building where he was held hostage. Two other security guards of the building, who had come there were overpowered by the assailants and kept there," police said.

"Later, this accused entered the office and responded with the vault that was carrying some money along with the passport of some of the officials of the company and other valuable items," police said.

When the matter reached police, a probe was taken up and teams of the Crime Branch along with Swat 1 and Swat 2 team were deployed on the case after which the accused were arrested on Friday near the Garhi Gol Chakkar on a tip-off, they said.

"Rs 8.05 lakh, a hatchback car that was used in the crime, two video recording devices of the Mahagun office that were stolen that night, three illegal firearms a gas cutter along with cylinder and equipment used to cut the vault was recovered from the accused," ADG Kumar said.

While seven of the accused involved in the robbery have been arrested another eight are still absconding, he said, adding that searches were underway to nab them.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Police chief DGP O P Singh announced a reward of Rs 50,000 and a citation certificate for the breakthrough by the police teams involved in the operation, officials said.