Three scooterists loot Rs 6.5 lakh from Gopal Sweets owner in Chandigarh

Three scooter-borne men threw chilli powder into the eyes of the owner of a sweet shop in Sector 8 and made away with Rs 6.5 lakh in cash around 9:18 pm on Tuesday.

Sharanjeet Singh, the owner of Gopal Sweets, was walking to his Mercedes parked behind his showroom in Sector 8 when the scooterists struck. Sharanjeet, who was accompanied by his guard Dileep Kumar, said there were three men at the spot. While one was standing on the road, the other two were on Activa.The scooterists threw chilli powder at him and Dileep and snatched his bag containing the cash.

Part of the incident was captured on a CCTV camera installed outside the house of HS Lucky, former deputy mayor.

On hearing their cries, other guards at the shop gave chase to the scooterists but couldn’t catch them. Later, the guard was taken to hospital for medical examination.

Sharanjeet’s daughter said a similar incident had taken place outside their house in Sector 11 in January last year. “That time too, two scooterists had thrown chilli powder into the eyes of my father and snatched a bag containing Rs 6 lakh,” she said.

The family and other workers at the shop claimed the police did nothing to chase the culprits. “There was a PCR vehicle near the Sector-8 gurdwara, we raised quite a din but it took a while before they reacted,” said a worker.

“The city is becoming very unsafe yet the cops are not on their toes,” said Sharanjeet, who shifted to a house in Sector 8 a few months ago.

This particular stretch in Sector 8 is usually deserted but there were a number of people at the spot when the incident took place this evening.

Last year in October, several teams of the Income Tax (IT) department had conducted raids at different outlets of Gopal Sweets in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali and Patiala besides residences of the owners. Sources in the I-T department said the searches were conducted at 19 places in connection with unaccounted income.