india

Updated: Nov 19, 2019 06:03 IST

A three-month pregnant 21-year-old woman lost her foetus after armed men attacked her in her jewellery shop on Saturday in Loni’s Ved Vihar in Ghaziabad.

Police said the in-charge of the DLF police post was lax in registering an FIR into the incident. It was finally registered on Sunday, 24 hours after the incident. The in-charge was sent to Police Lines on Monday.

At around 3pm on November 16 the couple Ragini Gupta and husband 23-year-old Raj Nath Gupta were in their shop when two men wearing helmets came in posing as customers.

“They asked us to show them gold rings to buy. As soon as I handed a few rings to them, they pulled out guns,” said Raj Gupta. “They robbed ₹10,000 cash from the counter and demanded for the locker keys. When we refused, they fired two shots at us. One of the shots hit the wall behind me. The keys were with my wife and they snatched it from her and kept pushing her to the wall till they took all the jewellery from the locker.”

“One of them also kicked Ragini when they found her attempting to call the police. They snatched her phone and fled. They were in the age group of 30-35 years and did not take off their helmets,” said Raj.

The gunfire caught the attention of the locals who, however, failed to apprehend the suspects.

Raj said that his wife and he went to the DLF police post to report the incident, along with a local shopkeeper.

“We handed over to two empty cartridges to the police post in-charge. The in-charge asked me to write a complaint about the theft at my shop. I noticed my wife bleeding and I was more concerned about her health. I wrote whatever he asked me to write and rushed my wife to a doctor,” he said.

Raj said doctors informed him that Ragini suffered a miscarriage.

“It was our first child,” said Raj. The couple had married in June.

Police said they took a stern view of the incident and the policeman’s conduct.

“The police post in-charge was sent to lines as he did not lodge the FIR in the first place and wanted to hide the incident. After we came to know about the incident, we approached the victim’s family who told us that they had given the empty bullet cartridges to the police. Further, the post in-charge took a written complaint from the family that would have only attracted Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections for theft. He also did not inform the SHO. On this account, he was sent to police lines,” said Neeraj Kumar Jadaun, superintendent of police (rural).

On Monday, the FIR registered included the more stringent IPC section 395 (robbery).

“After the robbery incident the woman also suffered miscarriage. We have formed teams to catch the robbers,” he added.

According to Raj Gupta, his shop did not have a CCTV camera but the neighbouring shops had.