KATHMANDU: Police on Wednesday made public an armed gang of robbers who broke into a rented house in Sipadol of Suryabinayak Municipality-8 in Bhaktapur and made off with cash and valuables worth around Rs 1.6 million in the wee hours on January 24.

The arrested have been identified as Bhoj Bahadur Thapa Magar (40) of Doramba Rural Municipality-4 of Ramechhap district, Ratna Bahadur Tamang (40) aka Milan of Marin Rural Municipality-4 in Sindhuli distrit, Amrit Tamang (26) aka Bishnu and Sanukanchha Blon (27) of Dhulikhel Municipality-1 and 10 respectively in Kavrepalanchok district. Two of the arrestees, Bhoj and Ratna, are said to be jailbirds who were granted amnesty by President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on the occasion of Republic Day.

They were arrested from different places of Kathmandu Valley along with the loots.

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

They had tied up the family members before taking off with the cash and other belongings, according to police. “The family members 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 allegedly tied up five of the family members against the furniture for nearly two hours before the neighbours came to their rescue and alerted the police. However, the victims were not beaten up but are suffering from psychological trauma, officials said.

Police have confiscated 6.5 tolas of melted gold, a Nokia brand mobile phone set, a red colour motorcycle (Ba 83 Pa 3773), and a jacket bearing the word "supreme".

The preliminary investigation shows that the alleged gang members dined together while drawing the plan at a restaurant in Sipadol at around 8:00 pm. They kept a vigil on the house from a nearby field until everyone in the house were presumed to have slept. They then broke into the house at around 2:00 am, said police.

Police assumed that they ran away to Bouddha and divided the share of the loots at Jorpati. Bishnu handed over the jewelleries to Sanukanchha for selling them and took Rs 290,000 cash.

Meanwhile, the accused robbers have been handed over to the Metropolitan Police Range, Bhaktapur for further investigation today.

Police said a search operation has been launched to detain Rohit Bahadur Thapa Magar (26) aka Tokal of Doramba-4, Dirgha Bahadur Tamang (22) aka Waiba of Melamchi, and Binod Tamang (42) of Sindhupalchok.