Man robbed, shot at in Rohini

They had just reached home at around 2 p.m. and Satish Jain was parking his scooter when a white Maruti stopped in front of them and four people got out. Two of them were armed with country-made weapons. “ One of them snatched the bag from the servant. A second miscreant tried to snatch the bag from Satish Jain but he resisted. It was then that the youth shot him in the right leg,” said a police officer of the area. Satish Jain was rushed to the Prashant Nursing home in the area. Though the incident was witnessed by shop-owners nearby, no one could note down the car number, the police say.

It was just a couple of weeks ago that the north-west district had cracked an extortion racket which had spread fear among the businessmen of the area.There are three factors which make Rohini an attractive place for criminals to operate-firstly, it is huge and relatively undeveloped. Because of this, a striking feature of Rohini shows through every second shop, in some areas, every shop is a property dealership and it is a lucrative business.

Secondly, it is on both the UP and Haryana borders, thus forming an easy entry and exit point for criminals from these two states. There are four escape points from Rohini — the Karnal bypass into Haryana, an escape route into Rohtak and a route to Ghaziabad, UP. “This is where urban Delhi ends and the rural areas of Haryana begin,” said a district police officer.

Lastly, there are a vast number of flats and houses which have been built, but are yet to be occupied since they have not been allotted. “These unoccupied flats are an easy place for criminals to hide and operate from,” says Gokul Sootha, a resident of Rohini Sector 16 and the Poornima Welfare Association president.

Till the end of last month, extortions had spread fear among businessmen there. One of them, a property dealer describes the typical modus operandi of the gang: “Three months ago we were sitting in our office when we received a call. The person asked us to go and meet an inmate in Tihar with some money. We thought that it was a prank call and paid no attention. A few minutes later someone came and fired at the shop windows. A customer of ours was hit in the stomach, but he survived.”

“We went to meet the Tihar inmate, but he was not there that day as he had gone for a court hearing.”

The north-west district police had arrested three gang members who they claimed were behind the extortion racket. They had also claimed to have arrested part of a Haryana-based gang which had committed a number of armed robberies earlier in other parts of north-west Delhi.

“The area has been totally neglected by the authorities,” says Gokul Sootha.

He point to specific locations in the Rohini area where there is a greater concentration of crime. “The Haiderpur canal passes through the middle of Rohini and it is a place where many bodies are dumped by criminals,” says Sootha. “There are also vast open spaces and the roads are completely dark and isolated at night,” says the police officer. “All these factors make it easy for criminals to operate.”