Kathmandu, January 24

An armed gang of robbers broke into the rented house of Ram Bahadur Tamang in Sipadol of Suryabinayak Municipality-8, Bhaktapur, and tied up the family members before making off with cash, mobile phone sets, a motorcycle and gold ornaments worth around Rs 1.4 million in the wee hours today.

Tamang of Jyamdi-9, Kavre, is a poultry feed entrepreneur. According to police, the masked gang of 10 held the family members, including Tamang, hostage for around two hours at knife and gunpoint and robbed them of nine mobile phone sets, Rs 63,000, gold ornaments weighing 18 tolas and a motorcycle. They were armed with pistols, iron rods, knives and khukuris.

“The family were forced to surrender themselves before the robbers after they threatened the victims at knife and gunpoint,” said police. The robbers had entered the room by breaking the windowpanes. They tied up five of the family to furniture for nearly two hours before the neighbours came to their rescue and alerted the police. However, the victims were not beaten up and are suffering from psychological trauma, officials said.

Police said a search operation has been launched to nab the suspects.