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Rs 2 cr jewels looted from Tiruchy bank
In a daring heist, burglars, who entered the locker chamber of a Punjab National Bank (PNB) branch near Samayapuram after drilling a hole in the strong room wall, decamped with jewels worth at least Rs 2 crore from five lockers, in the wee hours of Monday. They allegedly broke open the lockers with a gas cutting machine.
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Thiruchirapalli
When officials from the PNB’s Bikshandarkoil branch, located near No 1 Tollgate on the Samayapuram Road, came to the bank around 9 am, they were shocked to find the five lockers broken open and jewels missing. They soon alerted the police and based on their information, a team led by Superintendent of Police Zia-ul-Haq rushed to the spot.
During initial investigation, the police found that the burglars had drilled a hole in the side wall of the bank located in a narrow pathway adjacent to a school and entered the strong room. The culprits had also removed the CCTV camera and hard disk used to store the footage. The gang had then abandoned the gas cylinder and cutting machine which were later seized by the police. Interestingly, Rs 25 lakh was stolen from the ATM of the same branch in 2013.
Tools indicate involvement of technicians in bank robbery
The burglar gang, that broke into the locker chamber of the Punjab National Bank branch at Bikshandar Koil, used a gas cutter to cut open locker numbers 39, 114, 223, 299 and 300, which belonged to three or four customers.
“It could be a gang of three. We could not retrieve the CCTV footage as it was not connected with the server of the main branch,” said Superintendent of Police Zia-ul-Haq. He added that the bank does not have night-time security. Though beat policemen on night rounds had gone around the place, they did not inspect the spot of entry through which the robbers sneaked into the branch as it was too narrow.
The tools, which would generally be used by an electrician, were recovered from the crime scene. The tools indicate the involvement of a technician in the heist.
Police have also aksed the customers, whose lockers were looted, to come to the branch in an effort to get the details of the valuables kept inside them and to find out the exact value of the loot.
Cops suspect that the culprits had planned the heist for more than two weeks and asked the bank officials to give a list of visitors in the past 15 days.
DIG (Tiruchy Range) R Lalitha Lakshmi said a special team, which was formed to investigate the burglary in a cooperative bank in Mannachanallur, would probe this case as well. She also asked the SP to form two more special teams to nab the culprits in the bank heist.
Fourth in January
Robbery attempts in Tiruchy this month
- Jan 7: Indian Overseas Bank in Uppiliapuram
- Jan 18: Cooperative bank in Mannachanallur
- Jan 22: Kosamattram Finance, Lalgudi union
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