PTI is reporting that Four armed robbers struck the Air India cargo terminal at the Mumbai airport today looting at gunpoint about 100 kgs of gold and silver coins worth Rs 3.5 million ($70,000) in a daring daylight heist.
A guard working for Air India and identified as D S Bhosale was killed when he was struck by the car in which the robbers were escaping in perhaps the first of its kind incident in an airport in the country. A clerk with the firm sending the consignment from the domestic terminal suffered minor injuries when one of the robbers hit him.
No arrests have been made so far but police suspect that some insider may be involved in the robbery.
The consignment containing 145 kgs of gold and silver coins worth about Rs 5.5 million was being sent by Mumbai based jewellery refining firm National Refinery to Pidilite Industries in Hyderabad on an Air India flight.
A senior officer of the Airport police station said
“The robbers took four trunks of the total six, loaded it in an Indica car which was driven by an accomplice and sped away,”
Bhosale, who was standing near the gate of the cargo terminal, initially tried to close the gate and then attempted to block the car, however, the speeding car struck Bhosale and dragged him for some distance, they said. Bhosale was admitted to the ICU of a local hospital with multiple fractures but later succumbed to his injuries.