Mohali: Two gangs targeting night travellers busted, 10 held, 4 robberies solved

Police on Sunday busted two gangs, involved in at least four robberies, with the arrest of 10 persons, including two women, from Sohana and Zirakpur. The gangs used female accomplices to lure their victims.
The arrests came hours after a man lost his Mahindra Thar to four robbers near the Radha Soami Dera traffic lightpoint in the wee hours of Sunday.
The victim, Deepak Aggarwal of Mandi Gobindgarh, was targeted around 4 am while he was driving with his female companion.
Addressing a press conference, Mohali DIG, Ropar Range, Nilambari Jagdale said, “The gang was prowling for unsuspecting drivers at night. When they spotted Aggarwal’s car, they deliberately rammed their Maruti car into it, forcing him to stop. Following this, they overpowered him, thrashed him mercilessly and then sped away with his car.”
The entire incident was captured on closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed nearby.
The accused in this case were identified as Arshdeep Singh and Jaspal Singh of Barkandi, Bathinda, and Gurpreet Singh and Vikram Singh of Chandipur, Sohana. Apart from the four, their gang members Angadjot Singh of Sector 35-D, Chandigarh, and Shaima Khan alias Khushi of Baramulla, Kashmir, who resides in Sohana, were also nabbed.
DIG Jagdale said that Arshdeep had previously been booked in eight cases of snatching and robbery.
After their arrest, the gang members confessed to robbing Baljinder Singh, 33, the manager of Mohali Club, who resides in Sector 111, TDI. The gang robbed him of his Hyundai i20 car and a mobile phone at gunpoint in Sector 86, Mohali, on October 26.
Baljinder was on his way back home and had stopped to answer nature’s call when a Swift Dzire car stopped in front of him. A woman sitting inside asked him for directions. Just as he was guiding her, her accomplices robbed him at gunpoint.
As per the police, Khushi works at a local parlour and had met the gang members while having a meal at the 3B2 market. “She had run away from her house a few years back and was struggling financially and thus joined the gang,” a police officer said.
Police have recovered a Thar Jeep, an i-20 car, a Swift Dzire car and a country-made .315 bore pistol from the gang.
Meanwhile, Zirakpur police, led by SP Manpreet Singh and DSP Talwnder Singh Gill, nabbed a gang of robbers which robbed two victims by luring them through a female accomplice. The accused were identified as Mukesh Kumar, Sukhjinder Singh, Gurjant Singh of Patiala and Sandeep Kaur of Ferozepur. Police are yet to nab another gang member, Monu.
“The gang used Sandeep Kaur as bait who lured young travellers into secluded areas by making seductive gestures. The other gang members would then rob the victims of their valuables,” said the DIG.
The gang robbed Sagar Heer of Ambala of ₹30,000 on the intervening night of October 27 and 28 in Zirakpur, and Ahmad Farman of ₹3,000 at knifepoint near AKM resort on Zirakpur-Patiala road on the intervening night of October 31 and November 1. The accused Sandeep Kaur was booked in a similar case by the Zirakpur police in the past as well.