Avoid going to Nuh in Haryana : There is a loot scam out there!

Any one who comes across this post : It’s to make people aware that a very unsafe and horrifying set of incidents have been happening in Nuh, Haryana (India). People are being called to a remote part of the district to see a site or project. Then a mob of goons comes out with guns, hijacks the vehicles and loots cash, belongings. DO NOT RESPOND TO ANY REQUESTS ASKING YOU TO COME TO NUH.

Here is an actual account of the incident shared by an acquaintance. Though they admit they missed several early signs, their presence of mind and courage saved the day. And that they are narrating this incident to ensure safety of others.

I am writing and relaying this horrific account which happened to me and my friend yesterday to make people aware and wary of such kind of incidences which can end up threatening your life.

As we are in the construction industry working as professional architects and interior designers, we got a client lead from Justdial to our office regarding a project near Gurgaon. The man on the other end seemed polished with a Haryanwi accent, which is common to people originally from Haryana. He told us that there is a project consisting of 250 rooms including offices and hostels, for which all the interior design and construction work has to be done, and he was looking for people who could deliver that. He told us that the site was located at Nuh, Haryana (near Sohna) and that he wanted to hold an initial meeting to discuss the project.

Although I was a bit reluctant at first contemplating the distance and the feasibility of the site which was far from NCR, the scope of the project seemed promising as well as rewarding to my friend in Lucknow. At this point, I must tell you that the initial call from the client came to my friend’s office in Lucknow, and we decided to pursue it as I live in Delhi. I also asked the client to hold a meeting in Gurgaon/Delhi, but he insisted that he is leaving for Mumbai in 4 days’ time and he would be travelling via Jaipur; thus, we should meet at the site.

Nevertheless, I booked an Ola rental at 10 o’clock in the morning,and proceeded towards Nuh along with another friend of mine who handles turnkey projects for interiors. As we reached Nuh, the client asked me to wait at the bus stand of Nuh, as he would send a muneem to show us the way. He also told us that a bridge (puliya) has collapsed on the main road, so the muneem would take a shortcut to reach the site. We waited for a good 15 minutes, but the muneem did not arrive. After some time, the client asked us to come forward towards the petrol pump where his guy is filling his bike. We went towards and stopped at the pump. After some time, we saw a guy (dressed unclassily with dirty jeans and jacket) on a bike who reached us and asked us to follow him.

We started following him, and in about a kilometer, he took a right turn towards a narrow rocky path which seemed to us a shortcut at the time. We took the turn as he looked and waited for us to enter the path. As we entered the road, it seemed a totally implausible path for a car with rocky, undulating and narrow ground surrounded by mustard fields and trees. The guy in front of us was waving his hands in front, as we thought he was providing us the direction.

In about 300 meters, about seven people came out of the bushes, holding country revolvers in their hands (Desi Katta) and held the gun right in front of the car. The moment was so shocking to us that it took us time to register and internalize the threat. The guys opened the doors of the car, took the keys from the driver, and sat inside the car. They took the car a little more forward where there was a dead-end and no road ahead to go, nor any space to turn the car. They started snatching everything from us starting right from our phones, wallets, gold rings, and started looking for any jewellery around our necks, all on gunpoint. They started taking everything whilst threatening us with our lives. They took out our ATM cards and started noting down all the PINs of those cards,all the while talking rabidly words like, “jhooth mat boliyo, jhooth bola to dekh le kya hoga … Sach sach bata kitne paise hain har ATM mein aur kya kya PIN hai”.

The comedy is that whilst all of this was happening, we weren’t able to internalize or realize this shock, and we were asking, “Theek hai bhai, lekin iske baad meeting to ho jaayegi na …”. We were still in the hope that while the muneem may be an accomplice here, we could meet the client after this. He jokingly said, “Haha, karwa denge karwa denge. And a while later, he said, “Sab ki yahin pe last meeting hoti hai …”. Previously, we were also of the idea that perhaps the “muneem” guy would save us by telling them about the client/contractor and the meeting (usually they are powerful people).

While they were mobbing on us, the guy with the bike took aside the driver assuring him that they won’t do anything to him. He was repeatedly threatening us with words like, “Sale jhooth bole, to yahin bagal mein kuan hain, yahi ger dunga inko … Aise hi chadha rakhi hai dimaag kharaab hai”. We were not in any situation of non-compliance, why would we ever lie to them? We were complying to their every demand while thinking about how we ended up in this situation, and when would we be able to escape from here.

Two of the guys from the mob took a bike and rode towards the ATM. They were such idiots that while they had written all the PINs on their hands, they were still mismatching the cards, and were communicating to the guy sitting next to us that we are lying about the PINs. While listening to this, the guy seated in front on the driver seat would start loading the gun with bullets and say, “ye jhooth bol rahe sale, inko goli chahiye …. Ek daalta hoon, sab ugal denge … “. Whilst loading the bullets, he would drop some in the car, and would start looking for it. We would calmly tell them that perhaps the cards are being mismatched and would ask them to tell us the card so that we could tell them the PIN number.

While looting us, the muneem would tell the driver, “ye humaara roz ka kaam hai, do se dhai lakh to roz nikalte hain … Kal hi ek aurat aayi thi apni gaadi mein … Driver ne gaadi ke darwaaze band kar diye aur chaabi nahi de raha tha … Saara sheesha tod diya, aur driver ko maar peet ke chhoda … Us aurat se bhi 50000 cash nikalwaaye …”

Thankfully as we do not keep a lot of cash in our savings accounts, not much cash was looted from the ATM. But along with the phones, the cash, the gold rings and the ATM money, it was still a decent amount crossing 70K. The guy seated next to us would say, “yaar loss karwa diye tune … Itne mein kya hoga …. 10000 to police wale ko dena hoga, fir maalik ko dena hoga … bachega kya ismein… loss karwa diya tum logon ne …”. We complied silently and as civilly as possible so that whatever happens, they don’t hurt or kill us. We told them, “Bhai agar itne hi paise hote to taxi kar ke kyun aate, apni gaadi se aate … Kaam ki talaash mein aaye the yaar … itne paise hote to itna door kaam dhundhne thode aate … Jitna bata rahe hain utna hi hai … jhooth kyun bolenge aise time pe …”

The guy seated next to us showed some sense, and accepted our words. They took all the cash out of the ATM, removed the SIM card from our phones, took the phone and gave us the SIM. The guy in front wanted to take the car too. He said, “car nahi hai yaar apne paas, car le lete hain”. The driver said, “bhai meri gaadi nahi hai, loan ki gaadi hai …”. The guy replied, “To wo loan chukayege, tere ko kya hai …”. Thankfully they didn’t take the car. The guy next to us asked, “Kaise jaoge waapas, bus se chale jaoge? Paidal chale jaoge? Naa, paidal to naa jaoge …”. While tugging my blazer, he would say, “bhai coat pahna hai re … hum bhookhe mar rahe hain … khaane ko nahi hai … dekho ameer hai re ye log …”. “Now would you take the clothes too?”, I thought. Comically, he was also asking us if we would like to have some pan, gutkha or beer?! “Kya chahiye? Kuchh paan gutkha, beer laayein … beer piyoge?”

Finally, the guys on bike came back from the ATM. We asked for some money to spare us so that we could go back and pay the driver. The guy gave us some bucks to go back, and while throwing some change which he took from my wallet, said, “ye le ye bhi rakh le … jaa aish kar …. kahaan jayega yahaan se? Seedha ghar … samjha …”.

An hour long ordeal came to an end, as they allowed us to turn the car and go back. Whilst we turned, we hid our head from the back wind-shield as we were not sure if they would shoot us from the back. Finally, we took the turn on the main road. At this point of time, we were so shocked, that we did not even think of registering any FIR in the police station of Nuh. More so because we weren’t sure if police would even help us as they were already an accomplice in their crimes. I said to the driver to directly take us back home as fast as he can without stopping.

While we almost reached Gurgaon, we stopped at a tea-stall and talked about our ordeal. The guy at the stall told us that we were lucky we were sent back alive. Some years ago, people would be killed there. While driving, the driver looked for another of his phone in the dashboard, and it was also missing. So was his pen-drive on the deck. The driver told us while conversing that the looters told him that a guy tried to run away by hiding in the bushes, and they shot him in the leg.

We reached Gurgaon, and met the owner of the Ola car. He told us that if the driver could have told him that he was on a trip to Nuh, I would have immediately told him to cancel the ride and not go there, as he knows about the place. None out of the three of us was aware of the region. As they had taken our phones, we had to call Ola to get the end-trip OTP, and told them of our ordeal. They complied and our trip ended. We reached the police-station of our locality in Delhi to file a report, but we were told that the report has to be filed in that region itself. We came back to office whilst still trying to contemplate what happened with almost no money in our hands.

We have connected to some of our friends who are in relevant IPS positions, and have sent them the number of the person who called us as client, and also the location where we got looted. What we are more concerned about is that this is happening everyday and everyday someone is getting threatened and looted like this. This needs to be stopped and these guys need to be nabbed and imprisoned. All the while, I and my friend were thinking, “What if they don’t extract enough money from us, and tell us to call our home/family and put money in our accounts. What if they kidnap us for 2-3 days for that money. That would be hell for both us and our families.” I was also thinking about the lady, and trying to empathize how she must have felt with all that vandalism, beating, and threatening.That would have killed her internally. Judging from the immorality of these people, who knows what could they do in those situations. It sends shivers down my spine.

We are trying our best to do something about this issue, but that comes later. What I am trying here is to make people aware of this acute threat, and what could be done to avoid any such incident. Looking back in retrospect, there were many red-alerts while we were throwing ourselves into this ordeal. But somehow, as we had never been in any ordeal like this before, this was the least expected and the last thing on our mind until the situation flipped for the worst. All we were focussed upon was to impress the client and bag the project, and so was our thought-process. Do read :

• Why would a client look for a business in Lucknow when the project is near Gurgaon? That should have been our cue.
• I wanted to know more about the project on the phone, but the client would not discuss much and would ask me to directly meet in person.
• Why would anyone want to go to Mumbai via Jaipur? Isn’t Delhi the best option? He essentially avoided any meeting in NCR and lured us there.
• When the driver was talking to those guys, they told him that we didn’t come to the bus-stand because some policemen were standing there. Perhaps, the police didn’t want them to take us right in front of their eyes. Thus the change of plan and meeting at the petrol pump. We never cared about this.
• If the bridge on the main road had collapsed, we could have confirmed this with someone in the traffic. We didn’t.
• The “muneem” guy (as well as others) was about the age of 20-25 and dressed shabbily in dirty jeans, shirt and jacket. What kind of a “muneem” is that? We never thought about that.
• While turning right towards the jungle path, he was looking around towards his back. We thought, he was looking for us to turn. All he was doing was assessing if anyone else is watching him.
• In the pathway he was waving his hands which we thought he was doing to show us the direction. he was actually waving at his gang to be ready as we were arriving.

All of these red-alerts could have given us enough material to understand some shadiness, but I am assessing all of this in retrospect. As we had never encountered any such situation, there is no way we could assess the threat or be pragmatic about it. Now that we know what happened, I am trying to portray each and every incident as it is to make people aware of such possibilities and red-alerts.

Many must be thinking that as it concerns people from the construction industry only, why bother?! Please don’t trivialize this. This could happen to any person with a fair background and money in his/her pocket. Especially soft targets who are not in high administrative/police/political/influential positions. Even these people could get affected, but perhaps they could pay them back in the same coin. I am still thinking of the woman who got vandalized, threatened and robbed like this on such premise. You must surely assess these pointers which happened to us, and be as pragmatic as possible. Never go to an unknown place to meet anyone without any prior identity or assessment. Never turn into any unknown road. Never trust an unknown person with directions. Never go out like this at night. Try to meet anyone (especially first meeting) to a busy and known place which has been mutually agreed upon. There could be many more such precautions which you could yourself judge from my account here.

We are trying as much as we can to make this organized crime stop for good. Perhaps, the lack of morality and education drives such people to such extremes, but we cannot sit here and empathize with such criminals and let go of this. I urge everyone to share this and make your peers aware.

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Shared by Deepak Kumar. Click here to read the original post.