Gurugram, Oct 14 (IANS): With the arrest of three men, the Gurugram Police busted a gang of robbers involved in at least 50 snatching incidents by impersonating police officers.

Involved in multiple crimes, the accused, identified as Ramesh, Gangaram alias Sunny and K. Selvaraj a resident of Trilokpuri Delhi.

The accused used recorded police VT messages and an Eco sports car to make them appear as police staff, police said.

The matter came to light when a victim approached police alleging that it was on the intervening night of October 11 and 12, when he was looking for a vehicle to return home near Manesar on the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway.

During this, a car was stopped. Three occupants inside the car told them that they would drop him at Gurugram, and he got inside the car.

"After travelling a few kilometres, the accused took him at knifepoint and snatched his belongings including violet, driving licence, Aadhaar card and some cash amount and drove away after dropping him," Sandeep Kumar, spokesperson of the Gurugram Police, said.

Based on the complaint filed by the victim, a case was registered in the matter and a probe was launched. Soon, police managed to catch all the accused from Shikohpur village in Gurugram based on CCTV and technical surveillance on Saturday.

During sustained interrogation, the accused disclosed that they used to offer lift to victims in their car by impersonating police officers, following which they used to snatch all their belongings and flee.

During interrogation, the accused revealed that they would target a single person and then make that person sit in their car as a passenger and introduce themselves as policemen.

Then, they would play a pre-recorded VT on their mobile phone, which had a record of checking the passengers and their belongings to nab the accused who had committed a criminal act.

Thereafter, they would search the victims and their belongings and fraudulently take away their belongings, purses, cash, etc. and then play another VT, which had a record of all the accused who had committed the criminal act have been nabbed; you come back.

"The accused have revealed that they have committed about 50 crimes in the same manner in Delhi-NCR, KMP Expressway and Uttar Pradesh. From the observation of the criminal records of the accused, it was found that accused Ramesh has three cases registered in Delhi in connection with theft, Arms Act, and fraud and accused Selvaraj has already got one case registered in Delhi in connection with theft," Kumar said.

The police team has recovered an Eco-Sport car used in committing the crime, 01 knife and the Aadhar card of the victim, a driver's license and cash worth Rs 7,000 from the possession of the accused.