13 of family held hostage as robbers ransack home

CHANDIGARH - Thirteen members of a family were kept hostage in Haryana’s Panchkula town Friday morning while robbers ransacked their home and decamped with jewellery, valuables and cash worth lakhs of rupees.

Police said six armed robbers entered a house in Sector 10 at around 2 a.m. and kept 13 members of the family hostage for nearly three hours.

Earlier, police claimed that 20 family members were kept hostage but later they maintained that there were 13 people in the house.

“Police are taking the robbery very seriously. We have constituted a special team to nab the miscreants. We will nab the accused very soon,” district police chief Manish Chaudhary told reporters.

The three-storey house in Panchkula, about 10 km from here, belongs to a former deputy director of tourism in Haryana. He and his two brothers lived with their families in the house.

“The robbers gained entry into the house at around 2 a.m. through a window after breaking the iron grills. They remained there till 5 a.m. and tied all 13 members with ropes,” investigation officer Om Parkash Bishnoi told IANS.

“We are taking the help of forensic experts and sniffer dogs to collect vital clues. The robbers were armed with sharp-edged weapons, batons and two of them were also carrying pistols,” he added.

Before fleeing, the robbers locked the family members on the first floor. A child managed to free himself and break a glass window to come out and informed the neighbours, the police said.