Contractor, kin held for robbery

New Delhi, Feb 4 (PTI) A contractor and his nephew werearrested in east Delhi for faking a robbery of Rs 4.5 lakh towriggle out of a debt incurred in business as well asgambling, the police said today.

The arrested has been identified as Naresh Kumar, a DDAcontractor, and his nephew Upender who works as a labourerwith him, I B Rani, Deputy Commissioner of Police (East),said.

Kumar had claimed that four armed men snatched Rs 4.5lakh from him in Kalyanpuri on January 19. According to Kumar,he and Upender had withdrawn the cash from a bank and weregoing home when the armed robbery took place.

During the investigations, Rani said, the focus shiftedto the movement of Kumar as he stated that he was robbed atabout 1:30 p.m but as per the records, the call was receivedat 3:21 pm.

"The call details of the complainant were then collectedand scrutinized and it was found that there were discrepanciesin his statement. The complainant, along with his nephew, wascalled and both of them were interrogated at length abouttheir movements.

"During interrogation, the complainant confessed tohaving staged the drama of robbery taking his nephew intoconfidence. Then at their instance, Rs three lakh and themobile phone were recovered," she said.

Kumar also told the police that he runs his own business.

"The money he withdrew belonged to his father andsince he was in the habit of gambling and was under heavydebts, he conspired to evade returning the money to hisfather by staging the drama", Rani said.

He had concealed the money in a tank in his house andswitched off his mobile and tutored his nephew about the storywhich had to be told to the police and his parents, she said.

"They then went to NH-24 and stopped the car overthere and threw away the keys of the car and started shoutingthat they had been robbed. In this process, traffic policemenon duty went there and called the PCR," she said.