Days after robbing ₹18 lakh cash at gunpoint from Punjab National Bank (PNB)’s Kathu Nangal village branch in December last year, one of the accused had deposited the looted money in his account in the same bank branch.
The startling disclosure came during the interrogation of the two accused — Laljit Singh (45) of Mahiya Lohara village falling under the Kathu Nangal police station and Gagandeep Singh (26) of Rishi Vihar locality in Amritsar city. The duo was arrested for February 16 PNB’s Rani Ka Bagh branch’s daylight robbery on Monday. The Rani Ka Bagh bank branch was robbed at gunpoint by the accused duo on February 16. They had decamped after looting ₹22 lakh.
The duo was arrested by a team led by deputy commissioner of police (DCP-investigation) Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar on Monday, and the looted ₹22 lakh was recovered.
The duo during their interrogation confessed that they had also looted cash from PNB’s Kathu Nangal village branch on December 19.
A senior police official, who is part of the investigation, said, “Accused Laljit had a bank account in the Kathu Nangal branch. On December 19, the money was looted from the bank branch. Laljit had given the looted money to someone for transferring the amount into his account in the same branch. ₹18 lakh was transferred into his account in the same branch on December 31.”
{{/usCountry}}A senior police official, who is part of the investigation, said, “Accused Laljit had a bank account in the Kathu Nangal branch. On December 19, the money was looted from the bank branch. Laljit had given the looted money to someone for transferring the amount into his account in the same branch. ₹18 lakh was transferred into his account in the same branch on December 31.”
{{/usCountry}}“Laljit, who is a farmer by profession, wanted to go abroad and had deposited the money to show it during his immigration process. Our teams are working to arrest the person who had transferred the online money into the accused’s account,” the officials said.
The official said the process has begun to withdraw the money from the account for the recovery of the looted amount. He said they have recovered ₹3 lakh more from the accused’s instance, and they suspect that the accused were involved in more such cases.
Police have also recovered the two-wheeler used while committing the robbery in the Kathu Nangal bank branch, besides recovering the clothes worn by the accused at the time of the crime.