542 bags of wheat looted from Punsup’s Tarn Taran godown

THE LOOT WAS CARRIED OUT BY NEARLY 20 ARMED PERSONS AFTER HOLDING FIVE WATCHMEN CAPTIVE

TARNTARAN:AS many as 542 bags of wheat weighing 50kg each were looted by nearly 20 armed persons from a Punsup warehouse located at Paringari village in Tarn Taran district’s Patti subdivision in the wee hours on Sunday.

The wheat worth ₹6 lakh, which was kept in an open plinth, was looted around 3am, after holding five watchmen captive. Police claimed to have rounded up a few persons in this connection and are investigating the matter.

A case was registered under Sections 380 (theft in a dwelling, etc), 457 (lurking housetrespass or house-breaking by night in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment) and 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code at the Patti city police station.

“On Sunday morning, I got call a call from one of the five watchmen deployed at the warehouse informing me about the loot. I immediately reached the spot and informed the police about the incident,” said complainant Rajbir Singh Mann, a Punsup inspector.

“Five watchmen—satnam Singh, Bhagwan Singh, Nanak Singh, Gurbachant Singh and Jasbir Singh — were on duty at the godown. The armed men also snatched the mobile phones of the watchmen,” the Punsup inspector said.

“They loaded the wheat bags in a truck and fled. We have also installed closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in and outside the godown, but the suspects also took along the digital video recorder (DVR) of the cameras,” the complainant further said.