Three arrested for robbery, murder bid in Ghaziabad village after gunfight

Ghaziabad: Three persons were arrested for robbing and shooting at two persons in the Bhojpur area last month. The arrests came after a shootout with police on Sunday.
On March 26, the suspects attacked Rajneesh Sharma, a private company storekeeper, outside his home in Amarala village. They shot at the man and snatched jewellery from two women accompanying him for a night stroll.
Two hours later, they shot at a farmer Ajit Kumar. In a third robbery attempt, around 4am on March 27, they snatched the earrings of a woman at her house.
The accused have been identified as Itwari (27), Bharat (38) and Padam alias Vishnu (19), all from Shahjahanpur. Another accused, Avtaar, is on the run. Police recovered two illegal pistols, live cartridges, two pairs of earrings and Rs 2,500 cash from them.
"During interrogation, Bharat and Padam said most people from their village travel across the country, selling pottery made of Khurja clay (pots & pottery) at fairs and markets. While setting up stalls or peddling during the day, they would scout the area and commit thefts, armed robberies, or dacoities at night," Tiwari said.
They did the same when they came to the Sikri Modinagar fair. They scouted nearby areas, identifying spots outside of the village for easy escape. On the night of March 26, armed with weapons, they reached outside Amarala village, hid in a sugarcane field by the roadside, and waited. Rajneesh was walking outside his house with his sister Kavita and wife Rachna when he was attacked around 9.30pm. They assaulted him and then shot him in the shoulder. When his wife and sister raised an alarm, they hit them with the butt of the pistols.
"At 11.30pm, they tried to break into a house. Ajit Kumar was half asleep when he heard loud noises at his door. When he went to his front door to check, the accused shot him in his arm. They then navigated the sugarcane fields, headed on foot towards village Naglabair. Four hours later, they entered the house of Chaudhary Virendra Singh and snatched the earrings of his wife before fleeing to the Modinagar Sikri fair," the DCP said.
During checks on Sunday, the four were spotted in the Bhojpur area around 1am. When they saw the cops, they ran towards the forest. Police chased them and the suspects opened fire. Itwari was injured in a crossfire, while the other two were arrested during a combing operation," the DCP said.
The accused were booked under sections 109 (attempt to murder), 115 (2) (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 351 (3) (punishment for criminal intimidation) of BNS. The police will add the robbery section in the FIR.
Itwari is wanted in eight cases, Bharat in seven and Vishnu in four cases of robbery and attempt to murder in Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Kannauj and other areas of Delhi-NCR.