Criminals have free run on three-km stretch but police do little

The three-kilometre stretch from Sabota village to Kishanpur, where four women were allegedly gang-raped by highway robbers, has been crime-prone for long.

Seven robberies were reported in the area in the past three years.

In April 2016, a trader on his way to Jewar with his wife from Bulandshahr after attending a wedding was targeted in a similar manner. His car tyre burst and when he got down to check, the robbers threatened him with a pistol. The trader’s wife was robbed of her gold ornaments and cash and sexually assaulted in front of her husband. This incident happened around 11pm, when the Jewar-Bulandshahr Link Road was deserted.

Police said the road passes through fields on both sides and is near the Yamuna Expressway, giving criminals enough leeway to quickly escape.

During elections, there was regular patrolling by police control room vans and security personnel would remain vigilant, because of which no such accident took place for the first few months of the year.

In 2015, criminals opened fire on a 28-year-old man. “He was travelling in Swift Dzire but did not stop and sped away. The windows of the car were damaged but he survived,” said a senior police officer.

Locals said police know very well that the areas is crimeprone but take little action to deter criminals. An investigation officer suspected the Bawaria gang could be behind Thursday’s crime. The gang fixes nails on layers of discarded tyres to puncture tyres of the vehicles. They place these along bumpy stretches, because of which it becomes difficult for drivers to avoid them.

Bawarias are said to be nomads from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Recalling a previous incident, Brahm Dev Sharma, a Sabota resident, said, “On May 31, 2016, the results of panchayat elections were declared. In the evening I went to my sugarcane field and saw three people sitting on a cot. They told me to stop and raise my hands. They said they were police officers searching criminals in the area.”

“When I lifted my hands, one of them came and robbed me of cash and mobile phone and escaped,” he said.