CCTV footage from April 29 showing the suspects.A group of men who broke into a home in the posh South Delhi colony of Anand Lok, and held a 68-year-old woman hostage before fleeing with jewellery worth Rs 4 crore, had roamed the streets in the vicinity for around five hours, police have found. CCTV footage from April 29 shows eight men seemingly conducting a recce before closing in on their target. While police had initially said four unidentified men were involved in the 3.30 am robbery, the footage shows twice as many. No arrest has been made so far.
Sources told The Indian Express that police have procured footage from around 25 CCTV cameras installed at August Kranti Marg, Andrews Ganj.
“After scanning the footage, we found that eight men, carrying bags and packets, had been roaming in the area since 10.30 pm. They can be seen walking, sitting at the bus stand, and crossing the same lanes a number of times, without masks,” said a police source.
When contacted, DCP (South) Benita Mary Jaiker refused to share details on the investigation.
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Earlier, Jaiker had said, “We received a PCR call in the morning from a house in Anand Lok, Defence Colony. The complainant, Ritika (68), said she and her five-year-old granddaughter were sleeping on the ground floor while her children and other family members were on the first floor. Around 3.30 am, she found four people in her room looking for her almirah. Noticing that she was awake, they asked her to keep quiet.”
The family runs an export business from Delhi and has been living in Anand Lok for years.
During the investigation, police initially found an Eeco car and auto-rickshaw roaming in the area at the time. “Police then tracked the route and came to know that the car went to Uttar Pradesh, but after verifying, they could not find anything amiss. Police also gave a clean chit to the auto-rickshaw, which was also traced. The district police also verified details of all the domestic workers, security guards, and people working in nearby houses,” a police officer said.
Several teams of the special cell and the crime branch have been working round the clock to crack the case. “We suspect there is a possibility of the involvement of the ‘Pardi gang’, originally from Madhya Pradesh and considered to be one of the oldest groups involved in burglaries,” an officer said.
Police have also found pliers and screwdrivers that the accused allegedly used to cut the grills of the window and door from an empty plot near August Kranti Marg, 500 meters from the victim’s house, police said.
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