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Three days on, police still clueless about ₹12.68 lakh loot from Ghanaur ATM
Even as three days have passed since the ₹12.68 lakh loot at the Oriental Bank of Commerce’s (OBC) ATM at Chapar village in Ghanaur subdivision on October 11, the
Even as three days have passed since the ₹12.68 lakh loot at the Oriental Bank of Commerce’s (OBC) ATM at Chapar village in Ghanaur subdivision on October 11, the district police are still groping in dark and are yet to zero in on the miscreants involved in the heist.
Police claim to be rummaging through teh closed-circuit television (CCTV) footages of nearby areas to get information about the accused and the vehicle used to commit the crime, but nothing concrete has come to fore so far.
One of the investigating officers, pleading anonymity, said that a team of senior officials are monitoring the investigation as police personnel of the crime investigation agencies from Patiala and Samana are following the premature leads.
“We are also gathering a list of the history-sheeters of the region involved in ATM loots. From the crime spot, it appeared that the miscreants were professionals and had full knowledge of the technicalities. They had managed to shut down the in-built CCTV cameras in the machine and other cameras installed in the ATM kiosk,” the police said.
The closed circuit television (CCTV) camera installed inside the kiosk had recorded the miscreants entering, but there was no footage recorded after that.
Superintendent of police (SP) Harmeet Singh Hundal said that police have gathered important leads in the matter and are minutely working on cracking the case at the earliest.
“We are taking assistance from all available resources, besides rummaging the physical and technical evidences collected from the crime spot,” he said.
On October 11, before calling it a day, the bank staff had shut down the main shutter of the ATM kiosk. Later, the accused first broke the shutter and entered the kiosk before switching off the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) of the ATM machine. They then broke open the cash chest with the help of cutters.
Despite strict guidelines from the district administration, no security guard was deployed at the ATM kiosk. The bank officials had failed to pay heed to repeated recommendations of the local police to depute a security guard and install more CCTV cameras in the area.
