Gurgaon: Four armed men stormed into a first-floor house in Palam Vihar’s Sector 23 after disabling a CCTV camera in the early hours of Thursday, held a family hostage at knifepoint and fled with jewellery, cash and valuables worth about Rs 8-9 lakh.Inside the same three-storey building, the houseowner’s elderly parents on the ground floor and a senior citizen tenant upstairs did not realise a robbery was unfolding.The house belongs to Vikas Jain (48), a product compliance consultant and son of a retired Army colonel. Police said the incident took place between 2.20am and 3.15am.Jain said the gang approached from the rear, using a neighbouring house beside a vacant plot to reach his balcony. CCTV footage showed one of the men doing a quick survey around 2.20am before pushing a rear camera towards a wall.“One of them turned the CCTV camera towards a wall and began cutting the iron grille. They spent nearly 40 minutes at it. The room they entered through was vacant, and the AC noise made the cutting sound feeble,” Jain said.After slicing through the grille of a rear window, the men climbed into an unoccupied room and moved deeper into the flat. Jain said four had handkerchiefs tied across their faces and were dressed in T-shirts, lowers and sports shoes. They carried a knife, screwdrivers and pipe wrenches, police said.
The accused carried a knife, screwdrivers and pipe wrenches
The intruders first reached the room where Jain’s wife (45) and their daughter (11) were asleep. “They held my wife and daughter at knifepoint and forced my wife to remove the jewellery she was wearing. They kept demanding to know where other valuables were kept.”The gang took diamond earrings, rings, bangles and a nose pin from her, then rummaged through the house and found more jewellery stored in pouches in a dressing table. Police said the stolen items included five diamond rings, four sets of diamond earrings, a gold mangalsutra, three gold chains and other ornaments. They also took about Rs 5,000 from Jain’s wallet, cash from a ladies’ purse, and some identity documents.Jain, who was asleep in another room, was woken up and forced into the room where his wife and daughter were being held. The robbers kept all three under watch as they continued searching.“They looked disappointed and kept asking where more valuables were kept. We told them we are a small, non-business family. These ornaments were our savings over decades,” Jain said.The building has three storeys — Jain’s first-floor home, his parents on the ground floor, and a senior citizen tenant on the second floor. The third floor is vacant. Despite spending over an hour on the premises, the gang targeted only Jain’s floor and did not enter the other portions.Before leaving, they snatched the family’s mobile phones to stop them from calling for help and tossed them onto the rear balcony.Twice, Jain said, a PCR vehicle passed the stretch during the ordeal. “We heard the police siren twice close to our house. We couldn’t raise an alarm because they were armed and threatened to hurt our daughter. Minutes after they left, I ran outside, but they had fled,” he added.Jain said the robbers also warned them against reporting the crime. “They threatened my daughter and told us that if we informed the police, they would come back,” he added.The family called the police emergency helpline around 3.25am. A crime scene team, fingerprint experts and a dog squad visited the spot and collected evidence. An FIR was registered at Palam Vihar police station under BNS sections 309(4) (robbery) and 3(5) (common intention).
