Once peon in Parliament House, man held plotting dacoit’s escape

A man who once worked as peon in Parliament House was arrested here with his associate for planning to help a dacoit escape from police custody and to kidnap an Uttar Pradesh-based businessman for Rs 1 crore, ransom, police said on Sunday. Somvir Singh (30), a resident of Mundka in West Delhi, was held with his aide Ramgopal (30), a native of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, on Friday near a railway underpass in West Delhi’s Rani Khera area. Police said Somvir Singh, a notorious robber and car jacker, was released on bail in February. He set up an inter-state gang to make and execute plans for the escape of dreaded jail convicts. “The arrested criminals were planning to recce the route to execute their plan for the escape of a convicted dacoit, Yashpal (a resident of Aligarh), when he would be brought from Kurukshetra jail in Haryana to Saket courts in Delhi for appearance on January 2,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Ravindra Yadav said. “Another plan was to kidnap a businessman of Agra for ransom of Rs one crore,” Yadav said.