2 min readNew DelhiMay 5, 2026 02:19 AM IST
After executing a robbery worth lakhs of rupees in South Delhi’s upscale Malviya Nagar area, six members of one of the Capital’s most notorious robbery gangs — the Kaccha Baniyan gang — were arrested by Delhi Police on Sunday following an exchange of fire in South Delhi, said officers.
On May 1, six men, dressed in undergarments and wearing masks on faces, had allegedly entered a flat in Malviya Nagar’s Sarvodaya Enclave. “Members of the family were sleeping in two bedrooms. The accused locked both the rooms, and then took jewellery ,” the officer said. CCTV cameras in the house captured two of them, roaming around in undergarments, said police.
Officers of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Delhi Police (South) subsequently traced the six accused — alleged members of the Kachha Baniyan Gang — to Ambedkar Nagar, police said. “When officers reached the area, accused Nirmal Pardi, Devin and Samar opened fire at them. The police team fired in retaliation, and bullets hit the three on legs,” an officer said. The accused identified as Kaake, Krish and Shivaji, and their accomplices, were arrested. All of them hail from Madhya Pradesh. Officers suspect the six men were involved in at least four robberies in Delhi last year.
Members of the Kaccha Baniyan gang are largely from the Pardi community, a nomadic tribe originally from parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, traditionally known for their hunting skills. The gang became notorious in the 90s and 2000s after a series of robbery-cum-murders were reported across the country, in which the thieves entered homes wearing only undergarments. Among the prominent cases from Delhi was murder of two people during a robbery in Lodhi Colony in 1991. In 2014, a 21-year-old woman in Narela was killed. Officers said that if gang members were seen roaming in the streets at night, they certainly had zeroed in on their target. Such was the terror — a band of robbers would break inside societies and their plush apartments, rob it clean after taking the residents hostage, and kill them if they didn’t cooperate.
