Woman, friend plan robbery to frame her wouldbe husband

NEW DELHI: A 23-year-old woman and her alleged boyfriend were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly staging a robbery in her home to implicate her would-be husband and in-laws, police said.

Ajit Kumar Singla, deputy commissioner of police (northeast), said Shabana and Mohammad Anish,34, hatched the conspiracy because they were seeing each other since 2015 and had even married each other secretly without informing their families.

The two knew their relationship will never be accepted by their families as Anish was already married and was 11 years older than Shabana, police said.

“Shabana’s family had fixed her wedding for November this year. The couple planned that they would commit a robbery in her home and let the wedding be solemnised on the scheduled date. Their plan was to keep the robbed money and jewellery at the groom’s home and falsely implicate them in the robbery case,” said Singla.

On Tuesday, around 9 pm, Singla said, they received a call about a robbery in Welcome. The complainant, Shabana, told police she was at home with her younger sister and her parents had gone out for shopping.

Shabana said around 5.30 pm two men came to deliver a wedding invitation card and introduced themselves as friends of her relatives. One of them asked Shabana to bring a pen to write her father’s name on the card.

“The two men followed her to the first floor. One of them shut her mouth while the other went to the first floor and latched her sister’s room from outside. They tied her with her dupatta, opened the almirah with their own keys and decamped with ₹20 lakh in cash and jewellery worth ₹10 lakh,” Shabana said in her complaint.

The ‘robbery’ came to light when Shabana’s sister called her father to tell him that she was locked in her room. A case of robbery was registered.

Singla said they found discrepancies in Shabana’s statements. Her phone call details showed that she was constantly in touch with a man before the robbery.

Shabana was interrogated and she broke down. She also disclosed about her boyfriend Anish’s involvement in the crime, police said.