Hotel employee looted, shot after being kidnapped in cab

Gurugram: In December, 27-year-old Sunil Bhatt, an MNC executive and father of a two-year-old daughter, was strangulated to death in Delhi inside a cab that offered him a lift from Gururgam bus stand. His murderers later shopped with the cash drawn from the debit cards stolen from Sunil.

Six months after an MNC executive from the city was murdered inside a cab, a hotel employee narrowly escaped the same fate after he was robbed and shot in the legs by kidnappers inside a cab that he had hailed from Dundahera village.

According to police, the ordeal of Pradeep Rana, a native of Uttarakhand, began in the wee hours of Thursday, after he completed his evening shift at his hotel and hailed a cab from the busy area of IFFCO Chowk to go to his rented room.

No sooner he had got in, three men inside the cab threatened to kill him if he did not pay them Rs 50,000.

As he did not have the cash or any cards, Pradeep was forced to contact some distant relatives in Gurugram's Sector-10 to pay the amount. However, as they could not pay the hefty ransom, the kidnappers settled for Rs 20,000. The kidnappers drove through Gurugram's busy roads, all the while negotiating the ransom.

Eventually, Pradeep's relatives were called to a secluded spot where they paid the amount, but the accused took Pradeep to Badshahpur instead of his home, shot at him in the legs and fled the spot.

Pradeep is currently being treated at a private hospital, while a complaint has been filed at the Sector-18 police station. Moreover, the day this incident occurred, another robbery was reported inside a cab where a passenger was robbed of valuables worth Rs 8,000.

Crimes ranging from robberies to rape attempts and murder are being reported inside private cabs in Gurugram, due to a deficiencies of public transportation.

In spite of a strict law in place against plying of illegal vehicles in the city, lack of an effective public transportation system has rendered commuters dependent on private vehicles.

Many such vehicles are seen along National Highway-8, Manesar, Gurugram- Faridabad road, Golf course road and MG road.

While autos continue to be the most popular form of public transportation in Gurugram, cabs are still preferred for commuting to and from Faridabad, Noida and Delhi.