T’malai ATMs heist : Nine special police teams to track burglar gang

The TN police have constituted nine special teams to track down the gang that stole more than Rs 72 lakh from four ATMs in Tiruvannamalai town, Kalasapakkam, and Polur towns on Feb. 11 night, as North Zone IG Kannan revealed on Feb. 13. Refusing to state where exactly the special teams have gone, he said release of such information would be inimical to the investigations, but assured that results would be revealed in a few days. All the affected ATMs were closed. However, police were concentrating on the possible routes the culprits might have used to escape into either Andhra Pradesh or Karnataka through Vellore, Ranipet, or Tirupattur districts, and hence intensive checking was continued at the border check posts as well as at the toll plaza at Pallikonda, 20 km from Vellore, on the Chennai–Bengaluru National Highway. Vellore range DIG MS Muthusamy said based on the welding machine used, it would have taken them around 15 minutes to cut into a machine. "We are undertaking investigations on this angle," he said. All four ATMs were broken into within two hours, it was said.