4 arrested in robbery-cum-murder case

Four persons were arrested today in connection with a robbery-cum-murder case that took place in a nearby village earlier this month, police said.

With the arrest of four of the eight members involved in the crime, police claimed to have solved the case that took place on the intervening night of August 11-12 in Begumpur village.

Apart from looting gold and cash, the accused had brutally murdered the house owner Joga Singh (60) and severely injured his wife Kashmir Kaur and son Mandeep Kumar.

SSP Deepak Hilori said the crime was committed by members of the notorious 'Kalandhar gang', also known by names such as the 'Kala Kachha gang' and the 'Bengala gang'.

Sain Ali (mastermind), Tohin Motta, Dilbar Tandi, all residents of Malerkotla and Gurfan alias Bohru, a resident of Rajasthan's Pilani tehsil, were arrested, the SSP said, adding that all four belonged to the age group of 20-25 years.

The four other accomplices are yet to be arrested and efforts are on to nab them, Hilori said.

He said the police have recovered from the accused some of the gold ornaments along with the rods, sticks, torch and saw used in the crime.

The gang has been active in Punjab and the adjoining states for the past 15-20 years and a number of cases including those of brutal murders against all the accused are already registered in various police stations across the state.

Talking about their modus operandi, the SSP said the womenfolk of the gang first recce the area where they intend to commit the crime by posing themselves as a fakir, beggars, and rag-pickers.

After getting detailed information about the family, they execute the crime at around midnight by brutally assaulting the family members first in order to create terror.

Basically, they are nomads of Rajasthan who originally belong to 'fakir kalandhar' community, he said.

But now they are settled in other places such as Ludhiana, Malerkotla in Punjab, Saharanpur, and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh and some parts of Haryana also, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)