5 Lakh Cash Found Hidden Car Bonnet

What began as a dramatic claim of an armed daylight robbery on a busy road in North West Delhi’s Rohini ended with an unexpected discovery of cash worth Rs 5 lakh under the bonnet of the complainant’s own vehicle, according to police.

In just four hours, officers at the Delhi Police’s Rohini district dismantled what initially appeared to be a well-planned gunpoint robbery. By the end of the investigation, the complainant himself was in custody, the missing cash had been recovered from his car, and the supposed crime scene had been exposed as a “carefully staged deception”, said officers.

The incident came to light on July 10 around 4 pm when a PCR call reached KNK Marg police station. The caller, 42-year-old Gurnaam Singh, alleged that three unidentified men travelling in a Mahindra Thar SUV had intercepted his vehicle near Dwarkadhish Apartment in Rohini’s Sector 26.

“According to his account, two of the men were armed with pistols and forced him to hand over a bag containing Rs 5 lakh before fleeing,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini) Shashank Jaiswal said. “Singh, who worked as a driver and helper at a spare parts workshop in Kashmere Gate, told us that he had been entrusted by his employer with delivering the cash to Sector 14 in Rohini. The alleged robbery, he said, had taken place midway through the journey,” he added.

Given the seriousness of the complaint, police promptly registered an FIR under relevant provisions of the BNS and launched an intensive investigation. However, as officers retraced Singh’s route, the story began to unravel.

During a probe led by inspector Parmod Anand and Anand Singh, under the supervision of senior district officers, the complainant’s movements were retraced using technical surveillance and other investigative methods, said Jaiswal. Officers found no evidence that any Thar SUV had followed or intercepted Singh’s vehicle at any point along the route even as he had alleged being tailed and ambushed. While alleged inconsistencies surfaced, Singh reportedly continued to stick to his version during repeated rounds of questioning.

Meanwhile, police officers verified the cash transaction with representatives of the Kashmere Gate workshop. They confirmed that Rs 5 lakh had indeed been handed over to Singh for delivery, narrowing the focus of the investigation.

The breakthrough came during a meticulous search of Singh’s vehicle. Hidden beneath the bonnet, tied near the battery compartment, officers found a cloth bag. Inside was the entire cash to the tune of Rs 5 lakh that Singh had reported stolen. Workshop representatives later identified the recovered cash as the amount they had entrusted to him earlier that day, said officers.

A mobile phone video that later surfaced on social media shows a bundle of cash, wrapped in two layers of plastic and cloth, hidden near the battery compartment under the car’s bonnet. The footage shows a police officer removing the bundle from the compartment and unwrapping it.

Singh allegedly eventually told police that there had been no robbery. According to police, he said he had allegedly concealed the cash inside the vehicle before making the false PCR call in an attempt to misappropriate the money entrusted to him by his employer.

Singh, also known as Happy and a resident of Tilak Nagar, was subsequently arrested. Police said he had worked for the same employer for nearly 10 years and that financial distress had driven him to stage the fake robbery.

Additional charges relating to giving false information and criminal breach of trust were added during the investigation. The recovered cash has been seized, while further investigation is underway, police said.