greater noida a suspected cattle thief and a farmer died in an exchange of fire in a village in greater noidas jarcha area early on sunday while the villagers of khurshidpura claimed that the two were hit by bullets that the thiefs accomplices had fired to scare them away police have not ruled out the role of any local resident in shooting the thief deadtwo accomplices tried to take away the slain thiefs body but failed as the villagers gave them a chase they escaped in the darkness till late on sunday evening the identity of the slain thief was yet to be established police said they had registered a case and were investigating the matter a subinspector at jarcha police station subhash chandra was suspended as the villagers alleged that the police responded around two hours late police attributed the delay to lack of personnel saying much of the force had been dispatched to different districts for the lok sabha pollskhurshidpura village 25km from pari chowk is home to around 3000 people the villagers are mostly involved in farming and a few own cattle for their agricultural needsvipin kumar a local resident said in the past one week four buffaloes had been stolen from different sheds in the village on saturday a few thieves had sneaked into cattle shed of vipins uncle ratan singh 59 a gardener in delhi and fled with a buffalo singh started keeping a close watch on the shed while his family stayed at home around 100 metres from the shed singh decided to spend the night in the shed itselfthe shed adjacent to singhs owned by one harendra was raided around 3am on sunday three thieves sneaked into the premises when i was in deep sleep they held me by the nape and tried to steal the buffaloes and calves i put up a stiff resistance and raised an alarm he saidsingh who was sleeping in the adjacent shed rushed to harendras rescue he caught hold of one of the thieves and raised an alarm the accomplices asked singh to release their partner but he refused one of them whipped out a gun and opened fire a bullet hit the thief and he fell on the ground they fired another shot at singh and he too collapsed on the road harendra saidsources in the police said a few villagers had flocked to harendras cowshed when singh shouted for help the cops are probing if any of the villagers fired at the thiefpraveen kumar singhs son said he dialled the police helpline number at 315am a police team reached the village only at 5am though jarcha police station is just a kilometre away the thieves would have been arrested had the police acted in time he said gautam budh nagar ssp vaibhav krishna said a case had been registered under sections 302 murder 307 attempt to murder and 379 theft police are investigating the matter from all angles the accused would be arrested soon he