A factory worker was murdered while the owner of factory had a close shave with death after three robbers struck a knitting factory in Sherpur on Monday night. While two of the robbers were later nabbed by neighbours, their third accomplice, who is an ex-employee of the factory, managed to give the slip to the police.

The deceased factory worker has been identified as Umesh Kumar, a migrant from Bihar, who died after being hit on head repeatedly with a rod by the robbers. The factory owner Amandeep Sharma, who was lucky enough to survive, was thrown in a machine room by the robbers but he raised the alarm and was thus saved by neighbours.

The incident occured at Crystal Knitfab factory in Kailash Nagar. According to the police, one Naresh Kumar, a former worker of this factory, had hatched the plan to commit the robbery but he escaped in the garb of darkness.

The police said when the incident took place, only the duo was in the factory. Naresh Kumar entered the factory along with two of his armed accomplices and killed Umesh. When they were loading the truck with ready knitwears, they ran into the owner.

They threw Amandeep into a machine room. He was lucky enough not to get hurt by the running machine and escaped through another door. He raised the alarm and his neighbours nabbed two of the accused.