By IANS,
New Delhi: Eight masked robbers Thursday broke into a south Delhi house and held three members of the family hostage on knife point before fleeing with cash, jewellery worth Rs.14 lakh, a licensed gun and four mobile phones, police said.
The robbers broke into Suresh Chautani’s ground floor house in East of Kailash area after cutting open the iron grills of a window above the door around 1.45 a.m.
Chautani, 58, his wife Raj, 54, and daughter Asha, 31, were sleeping in their respective rooms when the robbers entered. Chautani is a former councillor of Palwal town in Haryana while his wife is former mayor of the same area.
The family has a hotel in the same area and also run business of cable TV. The business is taken care of by their son Vikas, 32, who stays in Palwal. The couple shifted to the East of Kailash house of their daughter, who is unmarried, eight months ago.
Of the eight, six robbers had covered their faces with cloth and the other two wore monkey caps.
The family in their police complaint said the accused first entered their daughter, Asha’s room and started beating her up. They tied her with a rope and then they entered the room of Chautani.
“They asked me to hand over the licensed gun along with the license. I told them that I would give it to them but I want to see my daughter first. They then brought her to the room,” a police officer said quoting Chautani’s statement.
The assailants also attacked Raj on her face with a knife. According to the family, the accused stayed in the house for nearly one and a half hours and ransacked the house. They fled with Rs.400,000 cash, jewellery worth Rs.14 lakh, a licensed gun and four mobile phones.
Before escaping, they also disconnected the phone lines in the house. The family raised an alarm after the assailants left their house.
Vikas alleged that the police had tried to hush up the matter.
“They asked us to mention only four assailants in the statement. But my father insisted that since there were eight people, he would give the actual number. The police tried to take the case very lightly till the media highlighted the issue,” Vikas told reporters.
The police said they have registered a case and were investigating the matter.
“We are taking the matter seriously and initial investigations suggest that robbers might have information about the victims and belongings in the house. We are probing it from all angles,” said a police officer.