GURUGRAM: A 75-year-old man who was on his way to a petrol pump to check his car’s tyre pressure was allegedly ambushed by four men in Sector 82 on Sunday evening and held hostage till Dadri in Greater Noida, where they pushed him out, stole his cell phone and cash and then drove away with the vehicle.
After a harrowing 10 hours, the retired government official finally made his way back home in a cab, thanks to a youth who dropped him off at Bulandshahr, from where he took a cab.
Om Prakash Dhanda, a resident of Mapsko Royale Ville, had driven out from his society around 6:40pm to get the tyres checked and told his wife he would be back in 15-20 minutes. “About 300 metres from the society, near Sikanderpur Badha temple, I got an important call so I stopped my car to answer it. I was on the phone for about 20-25 minutes,” he said.
At that point, four men wearing face masks approached the car. One of them knocked on the window of the passenger seat, asking for directions to Manesar. Dhanda obliged, but within seconds found a gun pointed at him.
“I rolled down the window and was giving directions when suddenly the man put his hand inside the car and unlocked it. He entered the vehicle and pointed a gun at me. Another man came to my side and covered my face so that I couldn’t shout for help. Two more men got into the back seat and I was pulled to the rear and held me captive,” Dhanda said.
In his complaint filed at Kherki Daula police station, Dhanda said the men drove with him towards Dwarka Expressway, and then Pataudi Road and KMP Expressway, where they stopped to pay toll at 8.23pm, according to the CCTV camera’s time stamp. Around 11.30pm, they reached Dadri, 80km away.
“The men were abusive and threatened me during the ride but fortunately there was no physical harm. They took my mobile phone and wallet. They also asked me for my debit card’s ATM pin. I told them that as the card was old and hardly used, I did not remember the pin. They then left me stranded on a secluded road in the middle of the night and drove away with my car,” he said.
All key numbers stored in his cell phone, the senior citizen had no way to communicate with his family. “I took help from a passerby who told me we were in Dadri. He dropped me on his scooter to Bulandshahr, from where I took a cab and reached home around 4.30am,” Dhanda said.
Police on Monday retraced the route Dhanda’s abductors took. An FIR was lodged against unknown persons under sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 365 (kidnapping or abduction with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) and 379A (snatching) and under the Arms Act at Kherki Daula police station. No arrests have been made so far.
Shaken by the incident, Dhanda said, “I never imagined something like this could happen to me, that too just outside my home.” Dhanda has been staying in Mapsko Royale Ville with his wife since 2018. The couple have two sons and a daughter. While one of the sons is an IAF officer posted in Jaipur, their other children live abroad.
The carjacking, in a residential sector and at a time of the evening when it’s not even completely dark, shocked residents in the society. They alleged that an incident of chain snatching had also been reported in the past.
Aman Dhull, who stays in Mapsko Royale Ville, said, “The incident raises serious security concerns. The stretch near Sikanderpur Badha temple is disputed, due to which there are no streetlights, turning it into a ‘dark spot’. We have asked police to beef up security in the area. The civic authorities also need to provide basic infrastructure in the new sectors as many roads are poorly lit.”
RWA president Sudhir Pant said, “When Dhanda didn’t return, we started tracing his movement. We discovered that the CCTV doesn’t function properly. Moreover, the security guard doesn’t maintain any record of vehicles that exit. For a society where 350 families are living, that is a serious security lapse.”
The developer did not respond to requests for a comment.
