New Delhi, June 15 (IANS) Two elderly men aged 73 and 67, employed at a petrol vend here, Monday put up a heroic fight to resist a daylight robbery and saved their company of being looted of Rs.1 million.
The elderly bravehearts – 73-year-old Baldev Singh, the manager of the vend and S.K.Bajaj, 67, the cash manager – sustained bullet and stab injuries as they put up a heroic fight to prevent the heist a few yards away from a south Delhi bank.
The two staffers of a Bharat Petroleum petrol vend in the upmarket South Extension area were on their way to the State Bank of India bank – barely 50 meters away – to deposit the vend’s earnings of Rs.1 million when they were attacked at 11.30 a.m.
“I was holding the briefcase containing the cash and Bajaj was walking right behind me. When we reached in front of the bank, three men attacked (me) with a knife and asked me to hand over the bag. For a moment, I did not react. They started beating me up. I threw the briefcase to Bajaj,” Baldev Singhtold reporters at a private hospital in south Delhi.
Bajaj said he threw the briefcase to a customer coming out of the bank, identified as Rajender Singh, who handed over the briefcase to the security guard inside the bank.
Police officials said that with the money out of their reach, the robbers fired two rounds at Baldev Singh in frustration and fled the spot. The episode lasted for less than a minute.
The injured bravehearts were brought to AIIMS Trauma Hospital and were later shifted to Healing Touch hospital in Malviya Nagar.
While Bajaj was discharged after treatment for his severely wounded arms, Baldev Singh was being treated at in the hospital for the bullet wounds in his back, officials said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), H.G.S. Dhaliwal said: “There are eight CCTV cameras inside the bank, but not even one outside. We have time and again instructed the banks in our district to install cameras outside the bank. There are no eyewitnesses in the case either. We are yet to ascertain whether there were three assailants or four.”