Delhi: Man out on parole, who stole cop's pistol, caught

A man out on parole broke into a house in south Delhi where five policemen lived and stole a service revolver and 10 bullets belonging to one of them, the police said on Sunday.

The accused and two of his suspected partners have been arrested.

The three had planned to use the revolver to rob a Karol Bagh-based jeweller, but were caught before they could execute their plan, said Sanjay Bhatia, deputy commissioner of police (central district).

The police identified the suspects as Atul Bhardwaj and his associates Vipin and Vishal.

 “On November 17, he broke into a rented home in south Delhi’s Kishangarh. At the time, he didn’t know that the house had been rented out to five policemen,” the DCP said. In the house, there was a service revolver and 10 cartridges belonging to a Delhi Police constable on security duty.

“Bhardwaj thought he could sell the revolver at a good price,” the officer said.

But later, he allegedly roped in two of his associates and planned to use the revolver to rob the jeweller.

 “On Friday night, we received a tip-off that the man who had stolen the police’s revolver would be visiting Karol Bagh to carry out a reconnaissance of a jeweller he planned to rob,” Bhatia said. The police laid a trap and nabbed him, and seized a country-made pistol and two bullets.

At his instance, his two associates were also arrested and the stolen revolver and the bullets recovered from them.

Bhardwaj was to return to jail on November 30 after a 45-day parole in a robbery case, for which he was imprisoned in September this year.