E-Paper
In UP's Kanpur, gang digs 8m tunnel to rob 1.8kg gold from bank
“It may have taken days to make such a tunnel. We suspect an insider passed off key information to the burglars to strike with such precision,” said Kanpur commissioner of police BP Jogdand.
Burglars broke into the strongroom of a state-run bank in Kanpur in the dead of the night using an eight-metre-long tunnel that was dug five metres deep beneath the foundation of boundary wall. Once inside the strongroom, they stole 1.8kg of gold, and made away with the loot, police said on Friday, describing the heist as the largest in the city in 25 years.
The breach was detected at 11am on Friday by bank employees. Police said the burglars dug a tunnel, which was eight metres long, four metres wide and three feet deep, to gain access to the Bhauti branch of the State Bank of India.The other side of the tunnel opened into a clearing covered with shrubs in an unoccupied plot across a 15-metre-high wall boundary wall, said police officials involved in the probe.
“It may have taken days to make such a tunnel. We suspect an insider passed off key information to the burglars to strike with such precision,” said Kanpur commissioner of police BP Jogdand.
The burglars — who remain unidentified — used a gas cutter to open the locker that held gold mortgaged by 29 people against loans, said a bank official, asking not to be named. The gas cutter has not been found yet, said police. The robbers disabled the alarm system and turned the sole CCTV camera in the strongroom the other way, said one of the officers quoted above.
They took all the gold weighing 1.812 kg. But they didn’t touch ₹35 lakh kept in an adjacent locker.
The heist was discovered at 11am when some staff entered the strongroom to get the cash and saw the locker broken, said the bank official quoted above.
The crime was committed on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, said police. “The other CCTVs around the area are being examined and several teams have been formed to solve this case,” Jogdand said. The plot next to the bank is abandoned and seldom frequented. The burglars took advantage of this and stored the mud and debris in dense bushes, said the police.
Bank manager Neeraj Kumar Rai said the heist appeared to be the result of months of planning. “For the past 12 days, the branch is undergoing an audit and everyone was staying back till 11pm, sometimes past midnight. We would have noticed something unusual if the tunnel was being dug in the past two weeks,” he said.
Police found a small drill machine in the strongroom. Deputy commissioner of police (west) Vijay Dhull said: “It is certain those involved frequented the bank’s vicinity in course of their planning.” A case has been registered under Section 379 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code in the matter. In 1997, burglars had entered SBI’s Govind Nagar branch after digging a 60-metre-long tunnel. Seven people were arrested who used to take turns to make the tunnel and dispose off the debris, said police.
