Police have cracked the case of the daylight cash van heist in Central Delhi in which Rs 12 lakh was looted by armed assailants with the arrest of four persons, officials said today.
Mukesh Kumar (38), Santosh Kumar (37), Amit alias Jitu (23) and Rohit Kumar (27) were arrested by Crime Branch sleuths last evening from Y-Block, Mangolpuri, following a tip- off that the gang would assemble at the spot.
During interrogation, police learnt that the gang members had also carried out a loot at the office of the NPDL Billing Centre, near Tibia College on DBG Road on November 1. They had robbed Rs 65,000 at gun point from the cashier of the collection agency of NDPL.
In the armed heist in Central Delhi last Thursday, six persons intercepted a van of CMS cash collection agency after it had picked up cash from an LIC office at Prasad Nagar.
"The gang overtook the cash van in their car and robbed it. A countrymade pistol and a motorcycle used by them were abandoned at the spot. While escaping, their car stalled on Pusa Road near BLK Hospital and they fled from there towards Patel Nagar," said Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch), Ravindra Yadav.
Police found that the car was stolen from the Sultanpuri area while the motorcycle was stolen from the Punjabi Bagh area. The modus operandi for both cases was similar and it was suspected that the same gang could be involved, police added.
Finally, a tip-off was received that a gang involved in both the heists, headed by one Sanjay of Sultanpuri, would be assembling at Y-Block, Mangolpuri at around 7.30 P.M.
After their arrest, gang members told police that for both heists, they had managed to get information on the availability of cash through an insider, police said.
For the DBG Road heist Sanjay, his son Rahul, Mukesh and another associate, whose identity is yet to be established, went on two motorcycles and waited for the signal from the cashier Amit alias Jitu before striking.
In the cash van heist, they had a mole in the office of Life Insurance Corporation in the form of part-time worker Rohit, police added.
Efforts are on to arrest the remaining gang members and recover the loot, police said.
