Srinagar
Unidentified gunmen allegedly looted Rs one crore in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district, police said on Saturday.
A commercial transport vehicle ostensibly carrying building samples was going from Samba district to Delhi on Friday night when it was stopped by the robbers who, at gunpoint, opened the containers and looted Rs one crore, a news agency IANS quoted police as saying.
Police have taken cognizance of the incident and a special team has been constituted to investigate the case, said an official.
“The robbery looked like an inside job since nobody would suspect a commercial transport vehicle of carrying such a huge amount of cash,” IANS quoted sources.
Details revealed that a factory owner in Bar Brahmana had given a box to the truck driver saying that it carries some samples. When the truck, a Canter, reached near the Shani Devi mandir near Barwal in Kathua outskirts, at least three armed persons forced it to stop. They broke open the locks of teh truck and took away the box. Even after the looters took away the box, the driver did not know anything about it.
Later, he moved to a spot closer to Kathua where he rang up the owner and informed him about some people taking way the samples on gunpoint. He also briefed the policemen who are permanently deployed on the Jammu Pathankote highway. It was only after that the factory owner moved an application to the police that the box was carrying Rs 1 crore.
Police have registered the case and at various places, teh raids were also carried out. But the loot has offered police a new case to investigate: why the factory owner choose the archaic method to transfer money? Was this black money and, if yes, how often has he been doing it?
