India, March 14 -- Mohali: A Mohali court has convicted five men for carrying out a robbery and snatching at a grocery shop in Kharar in 2021 and sentenced them to five years of rigorous imprisonment, holding that the prosecution proved they acted together to snatch cash, a gold chain and ration items from the shopkeeper after entering the premises and threatening him.According to the prosecution, the incident took place in September 2021 when complainant Pardeep was sitting at his grocery shop in Sunny Enclave, Kharar. A man wearing a black T-shirt entered the shop and asked for five litres of mustard oil. When the shopkeeper replied that only one-litre bottle was available, two other men walked in.During the interaction, one of the men lifted his T-shirt and showed a pistol tucked in his waistband, while another took out a firearm and pointed it at the shopkeeper. The accused then snatched a gold chain weighing about two tolas from the complainant and demanded cash from the cash box. The shopkeeper handed over Rs.30,000 following which the men collected some ration items and fled the spot on a motorcycle parked outside the shop.Investigators later found that two of the accused had visited the shop about 20 minutes earlier and purchased a cold drink, allegedly to survey the place before the robbery. Police subsequently arrested the suspects in another robbery case registered at Kharar and nominated them in the present case during the investigation. The complainant later identified the accused as well as the gold chain during the probe and again during the trial. The court convicted Shiv Chopra, Mustkeem Ali, Salman Ali, Vijay Kumar and Karanveer Singh for offences under Sections 379-B (snatching), 452 (trespass with motive to hurt) and 506 (threatening) read with Section 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).In its judgment, the court said the complainant's testimony formed the foundation of the prosecution case and remained consistent on the core aspects of the incident. It observed that minor discrepancies in witness statements were natural due to the passage of time and did not affect the credibility of the evidence.The court also held that identification of the accused in court could be relied upon even in the absence of a formal test identification parade (TIP), if the testimony appeared reliable and trustworthy. The court observed that "the widespread menace of indiscriminate snatching and robberies has struck terror in the hearts of the populace of the region....