GHAZIABAD: Robbers had a merry time eating salad and drinking beer for about two hours after they tied up a steel trader and his wife at his house here and finally escaped with cash, jewellery and a sports utility vehicle (SUV).
The crime took place on Monday night at Nehru Nagar, a posh area in Ghaziabad. Police came to know about it on Tuesday morning when the couple untied themselves, got on to the roof and cried out for help.
The police said three armed men barged into the house of Narendra Kumar Agrawal around 9 p.m. and overpowered him and his wife Malti at gunpoint. They tied them with ropes and dumped them on a bed.
They then calmly emptied the house of Rs 7 lakh in cash, jewellery worth over Rs 20 lakh, a licensed pistol, mobile phones and six whisky bottles before getting away in the trader's SUV.
The victim's son and daughter-in-law were on a holiday during the robbery.
Before escaping, the robbers raided the fridge, prepared salad and drank beer for two hours, a police officer said.
While drinking beer, the robbers kept asking the steel trader about Rs 32 lakh he was to have got recently, Agrawal told the police.
While leaving, the criminals locked the house from the outside.
"A team of officers has been assigned to arrest the culprits," Inspector Vinod Pandey told the media.