Do not take lifts from unknown persons in Gurgaon. You could end up dead

There seems to be an alarming rise in the number of people getting robbed — and sometimes even murdered — after accepting lifts at night from unknown persons in Gurgaon. On Saturday, a cab driver and his two associates allegedly abducted and robbed a man after offering him a ride from Iffco Chowk.

While the man, Ashish Kumar, was badly beaten up but thankfully not murdered, an engineer with an auto company was not so fortunate. Last December, he had taken a ride from unknown persons and his body was recovered from the forested area near Mahipalpur the next day.

Gurgaon Police said that several people were robbed of their vehicles and valuables after they accepted lifts from unknown persons.

The three accused in the Saturday incident had dumped Kumar, a Dharuhera resident, near Paras hospital in Sector 43 after beating him up. A case was registered against the accused on the complaint of the victim at the Sector 29 police station. Kumar was taken to the Civil Hospital in Gurgaon for treatment, police said.

Kumar told the police that he works with a telecom company in Nehru Place, Delhi, and on Saturday was on his way home to Dharuhera, Rewari district, when the incident took place.

Kumar said he took a ride from three men in a Santro near Iffco Chowk around 11 pm after they agreed to drop him to Dharuhera. However, when they reached Sector 29, the driver took a left turn towards Signature Tower. When Kumar protested, one of the men hit him in the face with brass knuckles, which left him dazed. Thereafter, the accused threatened him and snatched his bag, which had Rs 25,000 cash, four mobile phones, Aadhaar card, PAN card, voter ID and eight ATM cards.

ASI Sandeep Kumar said a case under Section 379B/34 of the IPC had been registered against the three accused.

Sunil Kumar Bhatt, the man who was found dead near the forested area of Mahipalpur, was a 27-year-old auto executive who on December 14 had accepted a ride in a cab from Gurgaon.

Bhatt, an engineer with a Manesar-based automobile company, had hitched a ride from unknown persons from near the Gurgaon bus stand.

The police later arrested three persons in the case. The accused had taken away Bhatt’s debit and credit cards, withdrawn cash and shopped in Delhi.

However, these are not the only two episodes.

On March 13, Nitin Kumar, a resident of Uttam Nagar in Delhi, was robbed by three men in a Maruti car in a similar fashion. The accused gave him a lift and later snatched Rs 2,000, his Motorola phone and two ATM cards. A case under sections 392, 342, 506 and 34 of the IPC was registered at the Sector 29 police station.

On February 28, Ajit Singh Bisht, a man working in a restaurant in Cyber Hub, was abducted and forced to give up his ATM card, which the assailants used to withdraw Rs 75,000 from his account. The accused had given Bisht a ride in their cab and beat him up when he refused to share his ATM PIN with them. The accused then held him at gunpoint, forcing him to share the details with them. Bisht’s hands were tied and he was blindfolded by the accused.

“These incidents have become a cause for concern and are being probed by multiple teams,” said Ravinder Kumar, public relations officer, Gurgaon Police.

